ed on parchment.[132:1] For many centuries medical
practice consisted largely of prayers and incantations, the employment
of charms and talismans, and the performance of superstitious rites.
Until the seventeenth century these methods were more or less in vogue.
Thus, a verse from the Lamentations of Jeremiah was thought to be a
specific for rheumatism.[133:1]

The Atharva-Veda, one of the ancient Vedas, or religious books of the
Hindus, contains hundreds of healing-spells, as well as formulas to
secure prosperity, in expiation of sin, and as safeguards against
robbers and wild beasts. They are repeated either by the person
expecting assistance therefrom, or by a magician for his benefit. Of the
therapeutic verses brief examples are here given:

(A charm against fever.) "O _Takman_ (fever), along with thy brother
_balasa_, along with thy sister cough, along with thy cousin _paman_, go
to yonder foreign folk!"

(A charm against cough.) "As a well-sharpened arrow swiftly to a
distance flies, thus do thou, O Cough, fly along the expanse of the
earth!"

(A charm against the demons of disease.) "O amulet of ten kinds of wood,
release this man from the demon and the fit which has seized upon his
joints!"

While reciting the above formula, a talisman consisting of splinters
from ten kinds of wood is fastened upon the patient, and ten of his
friends rub him down.[133:2]

The following translation of an old Scottish incantation against
disease is taken from a collection of charms, chiefly of the Outer
Hebrides Islands, and included by Alexander Carmichael in his "Carmina
Gaelica," Edinburgh, 1900.

Peter and James and John,
The Three of sweetest virtues in glory,
Who arose to make the charm,
Before the great gate of the City,
By the right knee of God the Son,
Against the keen-eyed men,
Against the peering-eyed women,
Against the slim, slender, fairy darts,
Against the swift arrows of fairies.
Two made to thee the withered eye,
Man and woman in venom and envy,
Three whom I will set against them.
Father, Son, and Spirit Holy.
Four-and-twenty diseases in the constitution of man and beast.
God scrape them, God search them, God cleanse them,
From out thy blood, from out thy flesh,
From out thy fragrant bones,
From this day, and each day that comes,
Till thy day on earth be done.

FOOTNOTES:

[111:1] A. J. L. Jourdan, _