number of the
most noted amulets, according to the disease for which they were
supposed to be efficacious.

_Ague._--On account of the periodic character of this disease it was
considered to be a supernatural complaint and hence many unnatural
cures were suggested, among which were a number of amulets. The
Abracadabra amulet was supposed to be especially efficacious in ague.
The chips of a gallows put into a bag and worn around the neck, or
next the skin, have been said to have served as a cure, at least, so
reports Brand.[99] Millefolium or yarrow, worn in a little bag on the
pit of the stomach is reported to have cured this disease, and
Alexander of Tralles advises, for a quartan ague, that the patient
must carry about some hairs from a goat's chin.[100]

Elias Ashmole, in his Diary, April 11, 1681, has entered the
following: "I tooke early in the morning a good dose of Elixir, and
hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my Ague away. Deo
Gratias!"[101]

Wristbands, called pericarpia, were employed in the cure. Robert Boyle
says he was cured of a violent quotidian ague, after having in vain
resorted to medical aid, by applying to his wrists "a mixture of two
handfuls of bay salt, the same quantity of fresh English hops, and a
quarter of a pound of blue currants, very diligently beaten into a
brittle mass, without the addition of anything moist, and so spread
upon linen and applied to his wrists."[102]

Burton gives us a leaf from his own experience.[103] "Being in the
country in the vacation time, not many years since, at Lindly, in
Leicestershire, my father's house, I first observed this amulet of a
spider in a nut-shell, wrapped in silk, &c., so applyed for an ague by
my mother; whom, although I knew to have excellent skill in
chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, &c., and such experimental medicines, as
all the country where she dwelt can witness, to have done many famous
and good cures upon divers poor folks that were otherwise destitute of
help, yet among all other experiments, this methought was most absurd
and ridiculous. I could see no warrant for it. _Quid aranea cum
Febre?_ For what antipathy? till at length rambling amongst authors
(as I often do), I found this very medicine in Dioscorides, approved
by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus, _cap. de Aranea, lib. de
Insectis_, I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more
credit to amulets, when I saw it in some parties answer to
experience.