The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-05-27

HEs DLhSAFOOi BE0lS1IN6 La HHE
reappear when medicine and surgery have
reached almost the climax of success is
something for philosophers to go and write
a book about.
A few weeks ago practical minded New
Workers declared themselves considerably
shocked by oriental superstition when
there came to notice the case of a sick
Chinaman whose cure was attempted by
Jealous friends. The Chinaman was bis
tered, lacerated and otherwise tortured. A
flaming powder vas allowed to burn upon
his forehead.
Meanwhile, to complete the exoreism,
his friends sang and danced about him
and enjoyed themselves very much. This
has always been lone in China and prob
ably always will be, because Cinnamon do
not change their ways of life. But the
Cinnamon who hear about the medieval
practices to which sick little Lizzie Krantz
was subjected and the divinity that doth
hedge the life and works of Mary Baker
Eddy and the alleged cures" of Chris
tian Scientists everywhere may likewise be
amused by foreign credulity.
To find magic healing in it's most pic
turesque forms one has to study the records
of the Egyptians and Chaldeans. The
treatment of disease was very spectacular
jn those early days. Among the Chalde-
ans the doctors, of course, were the priests
and were also called singers and 'sascha-
pim." They sang and prayed their patient
into a properly receptive state and then
banished> the spirits that caused the dis
ease by the very simple method of "lay-
ing on of hands" There were mystic
words and chants which the singing heal
ers repeated to complete the hypnotic
sure. They believed in music and light
and motion, a very civilized and admi-
rable theory of healing when compared
with some that succeeded it.
Hypnotism and magnetism were prac-
ticed to an extent among the
Egyptians. Devils and drugs were not
prominent in the Egyptian science of dis
ease and healing. In the first place, the
goddess Isis, if applied to in dreams,
would reveal to those who were suffering
the proper remedies for their sickness. OF
course such dreams had to be prepared for,
and the afflicted ones fasted, sacrificed,
prayed and sang and then dressed them
selves in pure white robes before sinking
into a sleep in a room of the temple. III
most cases, however, the sleeping and
uT6dIltuS WcIo uOliC ny eho pAiOcuo VI
prophets, who are supposed to be OF bet
ter terms with the divinities, and who,
after a vast amount of ceremonies and self
induced frances, told the patients what
had been revealed to them in the magnetic
sleep.
All this was closely initiated later by
other nations. The Jews, after their long
stay in Egypt, returned with these Gus
toms fully adopted. and the hypnotic
sleeping and laying on Of hands therefore
reappear all through the Old and New
Testaments. The Greeks also borrowed
from the Egyptians, although they kept
the healing art in the hands of a few fam
lilies. They. too, induced magnetic sleeps
and dreamed remedies. Both Greeks and
Romans attributed diseases to the presence
Of evil spirits. The insane were "pos-
sessed." The Romans called a mailman
full of ghosts"
All the ~orientals, including the Chinese.
Persians and Babylonians, displayed ri
markable cleverness in their ventriloquist-
ic feats, which never failed to deceive the
audience. The present day Indian fakirs
are legitimate successors Of these old time
magicians.
When this witchcraft of healing spread
to the west, it lost its picturesqueness.
The early English, for instance, aban-
doned magnetism and substituted potions
and compounds of a revolving nature.
Conyulsions, for instance, were treated by
: aase of h baked p~reparaticn made OF the