and godlesse meanes. Others set to sale at a great price,
certain amulets of gold and silver, stamped under an
appropriate and selected constellation of the planets, with
some magical characters, shamelessly boasting that they will
cure all diseases and worke I know not what other wonders.

The employment of amulets involves the idea of protection against divers
kinds of malicious spirits, including the demons of disease, ghosts,
fairies, and evil-minded sprites, surly elves, fiends, trolls, pixies,
bogies, kelpies, gnomes, goblins, witches, devils, imps, _Jinn, et id
omne genus_. Amulets served as preventives against bodily ailments or
injuries, misfortune and ill-luck generally.

Medieval practitioners, while utilizing material remedies to some
extent, relied more on the resources of occult science, whether in the
form of incantations or the revelations of astrology. The adept
consulted the stars to determine the prognosis of a case of fever, for
example. If he prescribed drugs only, his reputation suffered in the
popular estimation. In order to be abreast of the times, the shrewd
medieval physician needed to be well versed in star-craft, or at least
to make a pretense thereto. It is probable that many patients would have
despised a practitioner who looked only to his Herbal and store of
drugs, and neglected _Capricornus_ and _Ursa Major_.[14:1]

In "Chambers's Cyclopaedia," published in 1728, an amulet is defined as
a kind of medicament, hung about the neck, or other part of the body, to
prevent or remove disease. And a charm is described as a magic power or
spell, by which, with the assistance of the Devil, sorcerers and witches
were supposed to do wondrous things, far surpassing the power of Nature.
According to popular opinion, medicines were of some value as remedies,
but to effect radical cures the use of magic spells was desirable.

John Atkins wrote, in "The Navy Surgeon, or a Practical System of
Surgery" (1737), that the best method of employing medical amulets
consisted in adapting them to the patients' imaginations. "Let the
newness and surprise," wrote he, "exceed the invention, and keep up the
humor by a long roll of cures and vouchers; by these and such means,
many distempers, especially of women, who are ill all over, or know not
what they ail, have been cured more by a fancy to the physician than by
his prescription. Quacks again, according to their boldness and way of
addressin