Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery Part 15

Among the cla.s.sic peoples, symbols of their G.o.ds were used by physicians in writing prescriptions for material remedies, as invocations or charms, and were credited with the same wonderful healing powers which were ascribed to holy relics, blessed medals and amulets, and in later times to many purely superst.i.tious remedies.[167:1]

The worship of relics naturally afforded a strong impulse to visit sacred places, and especially Palestine.

Generally speaking, the prized relic, a piece of the true cross, whether possessed by a church, a crowned head or a private individual, is a minute speck of wood, scarcely visible to the naked eye, set sometimes on an ivory tablet, and always inclosed in a costly reliquary. M. Rohault de Fleury, who calculates that the total volume of the wood of the original cross must have been somewhere about 178,000,000 cubic millimetres, has made a list of all the relics of which he can find any record, and the sum of their measurements amounts to only 3,941,975 cubic millimetres, or about one forty-fifth of the amount of wood necessary to reconstruct the original cross. In the United States there is not an authenticated relic of the cross as large as half a lead-pencil, and some are so minute as to be visible only through the aid of a microscope. The Church of St. Francis Xavier in New York has a fragment which is exposed for veneration on Easter Sunday, as is the custom in European churches possessing a relic. Another fragment, at the Cathedral, is shown on Good Friday. This relic is in a crystal and gold casket, set with precious stones, which form the centre of a handsome altar cross. The French Church of St.

Jean Baptiste, in East Seventy-sixth Street, also possesses a relic of the cross.[168:1]

The powder obtained by sc.r.a.ping the tombstones of saints, when placed in water or wine, was in great repute as a remedy. The French historian, Gregory of Tours (544-595), was said to have habitually carried a box of this powder, when travelling, which he freely dispensed to patients who applied to him.

Great was his faith in this substance, as is apparent from his own words: "Oh, indescribable mixture, incomparable elixir, antidote beyond all praise! Celestial purgative (if I may be permitted to use the expression), which throws into the shade every medical prescription; which surpa.s.ses in fragrance every earthly aroma, and is more powerful than all essences; which purges the body like the juice of scammony, clears the lungs like hyssop, and the head like sneezewort; which not only cures the ailing limbs, but also, and this is much more valuable, washes off the stains from the conscience!"[168:2]

Chrysostom (350-407) commented on the fact of the whole world's streaming to the site of Christ's crucifixion. Rome was also a favorite resort of pilgrims, chiefly as the site of the graves of the great apostles, while many flocked to the tomb of Saint Martin of Tours.

Meanwhile, wrote Henry C. Sheldon in a "History of the Christian Church," there were emphatic cautions against an overestimate of the value of pilgrimages. The eminent Greek Father, Gregory of Nyssa (332-398), said that change of place brings G.o.d no nearer.

The cult of relics developed rapidly in the Middle Ages. Even the theft of these precious objects, we are told, was condoned, "in virtue of the benevolent intent of the thief to benefit the region to which the treasure was conveyed."[169:1] The custom received encouragement from many eminent scholars, who appear to have been deceived by certain mysterious physical phenomena, the nature of which was not understood even in comparatively recent times.[169:2]

Pope Gregory the First (550-604), we are told, was wont to bestow, as a mark of his special favor, presents of keys, in which had been worked up some filings of Saint Peter's chains, accompanied with a prayer that what had bound the apostle for martyrdom, might release the recipient from his sins.

The second Nicene Council (A. D. 787) decreed that no church should be consecrated unless it enshrined some relics.[170:1]

At the celebrated Benedictine abbey of Monte Ca.s.sino, in southern Italy, which was founded in the year 529, the care of the sick was enjoined as a pious obligation. There diseases were treated chiefly by means of prayers and conjurations, and by the exposition and application of sacred relics, which appealed to the patients' imagination, and thereby, through suggestion, a.s.sisted the healing forces of nature.[170:2]

Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, in "British Monachism," states that among the early monks of England, medical practice devolved on clerks, on account of their ability to read Latin treatises on therapeutics.

Until the middle of the fifteenth century, physicians were forbidden to marry, owing to the prevalent opinion that the father of a family could not heal so well as a bachelor. The art of writing prescriptions was made to conform to the dogmas of the existing religion, "for which reason relics were introduced into the Materia Medica."

The medieval priests and monks, who were actively interested in the development of medical science, encouraged the therapeutic use of such relics. Miraculous agencies were the more eagerly sought after on account of the popular belief in devils and witches as morbiferous creatures.

The reliquary, or repository for relics, was regarded as the most precious ornament in the lady's chamber, the knight's armory, the king's hall of state, and in the apartments of the pope or bishop.[171:1]

Gradually the custom of relic-worship degenerated into idolatry. In the year 1549 John Calvin published a tract on the subject, wherein he stated that the great majority of alleged relics were spurious, and that it could be shown by comparison that each Apostle had more than four bodies, and that every Saint had two or three at least. The arm of Saint Anthony, which had been worshipped at Geneva, when removed from its case, proved to be part of a stag. Among the vast number of precious relics, presumably false, which were exhibited at Rome and elsewhere, were the manger in which Christ was laid at his birth, the pillar on which he leaned, when disputing in the temple, and the waterpots in which he turned water into wine at the marriage feast of Cana at Galilee.[171:2]

FOOTNOTES:

[165:1] _Century Dictionary._

[166:1] E. Cobham Brewer, _A Dictionary of Miracles_, art. "Relics."

[167:1] Otto A. Wall, M.D., _The Prescription_.

[168:1] _Boston Courier_, March 26, 1910.

[168:2] Dr. Hugo Magnus, _Superst.i.tion in Medicine_.

[169:1] H. C. Sheldon, _op. cit._

[169:2] William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, _A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, art. "Relics."

[170:1] _All the Year Round_, vol. 69, p. 246; 1891.

[170:2] _Time_, vol. v; February, 1887.

[171:1] Henry Hart Milman, D.D., _History of Latin Christianity_, vol.

vi, p. 248.

[171:2] Philip Schaff, _History of the Christian Church_.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HEALING INFLUENCE OF MUSIC

Dubito, an omnia, quae de incantamentis dic.u.n.tur carminibusque, non sint adscribenda effectibus musicis, quia excellebant eadem veteres medici.

HERMANN BOERHAAVE. (1668-1738.)

Preposterous a.s.s! that never read so far To know the cause why music was ordained.

Was it not to refresh the mind of man, After his studies, or his usual pain?-- _The Taming of the Shrew_, Act III, Scene 1.

I think sometimes, could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished and get the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and medicine.

R. W. EMERSON.

Musick, when rightly order'd, cannot be prefer'd too much. For it recreates and exalts the Mind at the same time.

It composes the Pa.s.sions, affords a strong Pleasure, and excites n.o.bleness of Thought. . . .

What can be more strange than that the rubbing of a little hair and cat-gut together, should make such a mighty Alteration in a Man that sits at a distance?

JEREMY COLLIER, _Essay on Music_: 1698.

"Music the fiercest grief can charm."

POPE, _St. Cecilia's Day_, I, 118.

From time immemorial the influence of musical sounds has been recognized as a valuable agent in the treatment of nervous affections, and for the relief of various mental conditions. According to one theory, the healing quality of a musical tone is due to its regular periodic vibrations. It acts by subst.i.tuting its own state of harmony for a condition of mental or physical discord. Noise, being inharmonious, has no curative power. Music may be termed the health and noise the disease of sound.[173:1]

"The man that hath no music in himself," says Shakespeare ("The Merchant of Venice," Act v, Scene 1), "nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. . . ."

The ancient Egyptians were not ignorant of musico-therapy. They called music physic for the soul, and had faith in its specific remedial virtues. Music was an accompaniment of their banquets, and in the time of the fourth and fifth dynasties consisted usually of the harmony of three instruments, the harp, flute, and pipe.[173:2] The Persians are said to have cured divers ailments by the sound of the lute. They believed that the soul was purified by music and prepared thereby for converse with the spirits of light around the throne of Ormuzd, the principle of truth and goodness. And the most eminent Grecian philosophers attributed to music important medicinal properties for both body and mind.

John Harrington Edwards, in his volume, "G.o.d and Music,"[174:1] remarks that the people of antiquity had much greater faith than the moderns in the efficacy of music as a curative agent in disease of every kind; while the scientific mind of to-day demands a degree of evidence which history cannot furnish, for a.s.serted cures by this means in early times.

Impressed with the sublime nature of music, the ancients ascribed to it a divine origin. According to one tradition, its discovery was due to the sound produced by the wind whistling among the reeds, which grew on the borders of the Nile.

Polybius, the Greek historian of the second century B. C., wrote that music softened the manners of the ancient Arcadians, whose climate was rigorous. Whereas the inhabitants of Cynaetha (the modern town of Kalavrita) in the Peloponnesus, who neglected this art, were the most barbarous in Greece. Baron de Montesquieu, in "The Spirit of Laws,"

remarked that as the popular exercises of wrestling and boxing had a natural tendency to render the ancient Grecians hardy and fierce, there was a necessity for tempering those exercises with others, with a view to rendering the people more susceptible of humane feelings. For this purpose, said Montesquieu, music, which influences the mind by means of the corporeal organs, was extremely proper. It is a kind of medium between manly exercises, which harden the body, and speculative sciences, which are apt to render us unsociable and sour. . . . Let us suppose, for example, a society of men so pa.s.sionately devoted to hunting as to make it their sole employment; they would doubtless contract thereby a kind of rusticity and fierceness. But if they happened to imbibe a taste for music, we should quickly perceive a sensible difference in their customs and manners. In short, the exercises used by the Greeks could raise but one kind of pa.s.sions, namely, fierceness, indignation, and cruelty. But music excites all these, and is likewise able to inspire the soul with a sense of pity, lenity, tenderness, and love.

In a rare work, styled "Reflexions on Antient and Modern Music, with the application to the Cure of Diseases,"[175:1] we find that the custom prevailed, among certain nations of old, of initiating their youth into the studies of harmony and music. Whereby, it was believed, their minds became formed to the admiration and esteem of proportion, order, and beauty, and the cause of virtue was greatly promoted. "Music," moreover, "extends the fancy beyond its ordinary compa.s.s, and fills it with the gayest images."