Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1909-09-02
WAYS OF THE ORIENT.
Queer Ideas About Alternating
Bodily Suffering.
MAGIC CURES OF THE TURKS.

The Treatment to Which Crippled
Children Are Observation-Disclosures of
Garlic and Strings of Blue Beads as
A stone strikes some part of the body
Of an oriental and inflicts wound
would produce in his mind would run
something like this: The stone is the
cause Of rain, the cause Of the wound
1t is the principal origin Of the trouble.
But the essence of every origin IS hid
den, secret and therefore sacred. The
stone becomes an awe inspiring fetch.
The wound is neglected. The fetch
has to be propitiated. This simple H.
lustration is borne out and supported
by everyday experience which med
ical men encounter in the east.
Another instance may be derived
from among the lower classes of the
Greek population Of Constantinople. A
child falls and cuts his head. The
first thought of the parent is to be sure
not to wash and to bind up the wound,
still less to call medical assistance,
to be. This is always an afterthought,
which very often comes SO late that
the help Of a surgeon can prove of no
use.
The first thing the father or mother of
the injured child thinks of doing is to
pour over the shoulder upon the place
Of the accident q Ebation Of wine or
70 TxyhiC IN
forming this some mysterious formula
supposed to possess supernatural eff
cacy against every form of evil.
The Moslems are addicted to the
queerest practices for purposes Of heal
ing or alternating bodily pain. A Turk.
for instance, in distress or suffering
from some disease, however severe,
knows of no better remedy than to fix
a piece Of his dress, torn off with true
oriental equanimity, to an iron bar Of
some saints tomb or to drink water
from a tumbler into which he has pre-
viously put a sheet of paper with writ
tngs from the Koran. Sometimes he
will take a jar, the interior of which
has been written all over with strange
it with water, wait till these formulate
and signs have been thoroughly dis
solved and drink the singular solution
with an absolute faith in its wonder
working efficacy.
Sheltered by the somber expresses
of the great Mohammedan cemetery at
Scutari Che ancient ChrysopOlis on the
Asiatic coast OF the Bosporus) there
stands in picturesque solitude the tomb
Of q horse. Every Friday afternoon
Turkish mothers carry to that tomb
their crippled children to be submitted
by select "khodja" (priesN to an ex-
traordinary course of treatment. These
children are dragged, with their dis
eased limbs dangling over the htllock,
from one end of the tomb to the other
and then back again in the same fash
ion. The occult influence emanating
from this hillock is supposed to be an
all efficient panacea.
1t is not difficult to trace in this case
the crude, imperfect association Of
ideas The horse has long been con-
sidered an emblem of vigor. typifying,
as Rusktn says, 1.-The flow and force
of life" Hence the belief of the orr
entail, inherited, no doubt, from the
Greeks, in the all conquering virtue
and influence of occult and mysterious
eff1uvia which are supposed to emanate
constantly from a horses tomb.
The wearing of a necklace Of blue
beads or of garlic as q potent means
of keeping away disease or Of warding
off the evil eye is quite a universal
matter of sincere belief il the whole
of Turkey. This superstition is shared,
as is well known, by the lower classes
of many a country in civilized eastern
Europe There, however, it is not so
universal and fragrant as in the orient.
There is scarcely a house In the
Moslem, Greek and Armenian districts
of the population of Constantinople
which has not hanging above its en-
trance door a collection of garlic and
scarcely a beast of toll which has not
attached to some part Of it a string
of blue beads. Among the uneducated
it is impossible to find an individual
who does not pin absolute faith to the
all healing power of such charms,
especially of blue beads, which are
supposed to be an unfailing panacea
against every possible Ill.
Less general is the belief in the east
In the baleful influence Of the planets
Saturn and Mars upon the constitution
of the human body, upon its four car
dinal humors-blood, phlegm, yellow
bile and black bile. These planets are
considered by some orientals, especial
ly in the far south, as the unnistak-
able causes of all sorts Of ailments.
Woe unto him who begins any work
when Saturn or Mars is in the ascend
ant.-Cleveland Plain Dealer.