The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-06-20
VOLUME XVI.
fluid between them are employed to
form Qalyanic circle,

FACES tuee properties or virtues ther
possessed impressed upon them by plarr-
etary influence. The connection of the
properties of substances with their color
is also an opinion of great antiquity;
white was regarded as refrigerant, red
as hot--cold and hot qualities were
therefore attributed to medicines so col
orcd. This opinion led to serious err
rors in practice. Red flowers were
given for disorders of the sanguiferous
system, yellow ones for those of the
hillary secretion, etc. We find that in
smallpox red bed coverings were en-
ployed with the view of bringing the
pustules to the surface of the body. The
bed furniture and hangings were very
commonly OF a red color--red sub
stances were to be looked upon by. the
patient, Burnt purple, pomegranate
seed, mulberries or other red ingredi-
ents were dissolved in their drink. In
short, as Ayicenna contended that red
bodies moved the blood, everything of
red color was employed in these cases
John of Gadderden, physician to Ed
ward H., directs his patients to be
wrapped up in scarlet dresses, and he
says that when the son of the re-
nowned King of England Edward ii. }
lay sick of the smallpox, l took care
that everything around the bed should
be of red color; which succeeded SO
completely that the prince was restored
to perfect health without the vestige of
a pustule remaining" Wraxall. in his
Memoirs, says that the Emperor
Francis L., when infected with the
smallpox, was rolled up in a scarlet
cloth by order of his physician as late
as 1865, when he died. Flannel dyed
nine times in blue was held to be eff.
cacious in the removal of glandular
swellings Amulets in earlier times
were borne alike by rich and poor, and
even in our own day are not wholly
discarded showing how firmly super
stition lays hold of the enlightened
mind. The elder tree, to the history OF
which many superstitions belong, forms
charm for a variety of diseases, but
lepsy,
During the severe visitation of the
plague in London amulets composed OF
arsenic were very commonly worn over
the region of the heart, upon the princi-
pie that one poison would drive out or
prevent the entry of another. Quilts of
quicksilver were commonly worn about
the neck as preservative against the
plague. The powder of toad was sn-
ployed in similar way. Pope Adrian
is reported neser to have been without
y The ingredients forming his amulet
were dried toad, arsenic, tormentil,
pearl, coral, hyacinth, smarag and
tragacanth. Charms were equally pre-
valent with tailsmans and amulets, and
in rural districts the belief in their eff
cacy is far from being extinguished.
The possibility of transplanting or
transferring the ague was once COM
monty entertained 1t is usual with
many persons in Germany who are
affected with ague to visit at dead of
times, and there bury new laid egg.
The visit is paid about an hour before
the cold fit is expected; and they are
persuaded that with the egg they shall
bury the ague. If the experiment fails
(and the agitation it occasions may
often render it successfully they at.
tribute it to some unlucky accident that
may have befallen them on the way. In
the course of the walk, and in the per-
Torrance of the rite, they observe the
strictest silence, taking care not to
speak to any one whom they may
happen to meet. By breaking a sailed
cake of bran, and giving it to dog
when the fit comes on, the malady has
been supposed to be transferred from
the patient to the animal
Fish charms have haap mot with,
among many nations. The fish called
the bullhead is used by some of the
Russian peasants as charm against
fever. Again, if suspended horizontally
and carefully balanced by single
thread, while allowed some freedom of
motion, the fish is credited with the
power of indicating, by the direction of
the head, the point of the compass from
which the wind will blow.
That these charms are totally useless,
and can produce no effect on the disease
for the cure of which they are admins
tered, must be evident to every educated
mind. In the nature of things, such
cases are impossible unless, be it always
remembered, the malady is of nervous
character, and one over which the i'm
agination is capable of exercising some
control The power which the mind
exerts over the body is too well known
to be for one moment discredited, and
certain diseases may yield to this infu-
ence, when the patients imagination is
excited by belief in the po-
tency of the talisman applied. Number
less instances of this kind of influence
are on record that given by DR.. Paris
in his "Pharmacologia" is perhaps the
most strikingly illustrative. As soon as
the powers of nitrous oxide were discov-
cred DIR. Beddoes at once concluded
that it must necessarily be spe-
citic for paralysis. A patient was
selected for the trial. Previous
to the administration of the gas the doc
tor inserted small pocket thermome-
ter under the tongue of the patient, as
he was accustomed to do upon such &C
casions, to ascertain the degree of ami
NAL temperature, with view to future
The paralytic man,
wholly ignorant of the nature of the
process to which he was to submit, but
deeply impressed from the representa-
ton of the physician, with the certainty
OF It's success, no sooner felt the ther-
mometer under his tongue than he con-
cluded the tdlisnaan was in full opera
ton, and in burst of enthusiasm de-
clared that he already experienced the
effect of its benign influence throughout
the whole body. The opportunity was
too tempting to be lost; DR.. Beddoes
desired his patient to renew his visits
on the following day, when the same
ceremony was performed and repeated
every succeeding day for a fortnight,
the patient gradually improving during
the period, when he was dismissed as
cured, no other application having been
used. Cures effected by the imposition
Of royal hands, by stroking, by mesmer-
sm and the like, are proofs of the same
principle, principle of which the ju-
iicious physician may sometimes avail
himself for his patients sake, but which
he will never exercise as an instrument
Tor his own aggrandizement. Advert
ing, therefore, to the numerous
phases which superstition in past
ages has assumed, there is none which
exhibits the human understanding in a
more degraded light than that con-
lected with the cure of bodily infirmi-
lies. Few if any of these cures had a
how of reason to recommend them to
he cultivated mind; and even these few
we're so clouded with mummery and
argon that one is apt to treat them
With ridicule, believing that more vir-
ue was ascribed to the mode of admin
stration than to the potency of the
article prescribed. Nor did these su-
exert the sway over the vul-
Il L. II