Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery Part 22

According to his doctrine, man is a little world or microcosm, and in him are represented all the elements which are to be found in the great world or macrocosm. Some diseases, he averred, require earthy remedies, others aqueous or atmospheric, and still others, igneous. Paracelsus was thoroughly imbued with the cabalistic theories prevalent in his time, and traced a.n.a.logies between the stars and various portions of the human body. His fame as the greatest of charlatans appears to have been due in large measure to his influence over the popular imagination by the magic power of high-sounding words, which were mostly beyond the comprehension of his hearers. His teachings have been aptly described as a system of dogmatic and fantastic pseudo-philosophy. The following quotation may serve as an ill.u.s.tration.

All these recipes which are prepared for elemental diseases, consist of six things, two of which are from the planets, two from the elements, and two from narcotics. For although they can be composed of three things, one out of each being taken, yet these are too weak for healing purposes. Now there are two which derive from the planets, because they conciliate and correct medicine; two derive from the elements, in order that the grade of the disease may be overcome. Lastly, two are from the narcotics, because the four parts already mentioned are too weak of themselves to expel a disease before the crisis.

Observe then, concerning composition, to forestall the critical day. Recipes prepared in this manner, are very helpful for diseases in all degrees of acuteness.

Paracelsus was the first to promulgate the theory of the existence of magnetic properties in the human body, maintaining that the latter was endowed with a double magnetism, of which one portion attracted to itself the planets, and was nourished by them; whence came wisdom, thought, and the senses. The other portion attracted to itself the elements; whence came flesh and blood. He also a.s.serted that the attractive and hidden virtue of man resembles that of amber and of the magnet, and that this virtue may be employed by healthy persons for the cure of disease in others. Thus probably originated the idea which developed into Animal Magnetism, and from it Anton Mesmer is said to have derived inspiration some two hundred years later. Paracelsus died at Salzburg, Austria, in 1541.

In the words of that eminent English divine, Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), Paracelsus boasted of more than he could do, did more cures seemingly than really, more cures really than lawfully, of more parts than learning, of more fame than parts, a better physician than a man, and a better chirurgeon than physician.

Paracelsus was a very prince among quacks, for probably no man ever talked more loudly and ostentatiously or made vainer pretensions. He was emphatically a knavish pract.i.tioner of medicine, a master of the art of puffery, and was phenomenally successful in achieving notoriety.

Whatever his natural talent may have been, says Edward Meryon, M.D.,[246:1] he placed himself in the category with those of the same nature, who have ever been ready to purchase this world's riches at the ruinous price of character and reputation.

The system of Paracelsus was founded upon mysticism and fanaticism of the grossest kind. The chief aim of his doctrine was the blending of mysticism and therapeutics, and the creation thereby of a false science, wherewith he sought to exert an influence over the ignorant cla.s.ses.

According to the cabalistic doctrine, the various events of life and all natural phenomena are due to influences exerted by G.o.ds, devils, and the stars. Each member and princ.i.p.al organ of the human body was supposed to correspond with some planet or constellation. Similar foolish ideas were widely prevalent, especially in Germany. Paracelsus was an ignoramus, who affected to despise all the sciences, because of his lack of knowledge of them. While prating much about divine light as the source of all learning and culture, his boorish mien and rude manners afforded evidence that he did not profit much by its happy influence.[246:2]

The Paracelsians maintained that life is a perpetual germinative process, controlled by the _archaeus_ or vital force, which was supposed to preside over all organic phenomena. The princ.i.p.al _archaeus_ was believed to have its residence in the stomach, but subordinates guarded the interests of the other important bodily organs.

Nature was sufficient for the cure of the majority of ills. But when the internal physician, the man himself, was tired or incapable, some remedy had to be applied, which should antagonize the spiritual seed of the disease.[247:1] Such remedies, known as _arcana_, were alleged to possess marvellous efficiency, but their composition was kept secret.

That is to say, they were quack medicines.

Paracelsus maintained that a man who, by abstraction of all sensuous influences, and by child-like submission to the will of G.o.d, has made himself a partaker of the heavenly intelligence, becomes thereby possessed of the philosopher's stone. He is never at a loss. All creatures on earth and powers in heaven are submissive to him; he can cure all diseases, and can himself live as long as he chooses, for he holds the elixir of life, which Adam and the early fathers employed before the Flood, and by which they attained to great longevity.

The philosopher's stone, known also as the _great elixir_, or the _red tincture_, when shaken in very small quant.i.ty into melted silver, lead or other metal, was said to trans.m.u.te it into gold. In minute doses it was supposed to prolong life and restore youth, and was then called _elixir vitae_.[247:2] Says Ben Jonson in "The Alchemist" (1610), "He that has once the Flower of the Sun, the perfect Ruby which we call _Elixir_ . . . by its virtue can confer honour, love, respect, long life; give safety, valour, yea and victory, to whom he will. In eight and twenty days he'll make an old man of fourscore a child."

Paracelsus was foremost among a group of extraordinary characters, who claimed to be the representatives of science at the close of the Middle Ages. These men were of a bold, inquisitive temper, and with all their faults, they had a n.o.ble thirst for knowledge. "Better the wildest guess-work, than that perfect torpor which follows the parrot-like repet.i.tion of the words of a predecessor!"[248:1] These irregular pract.i.tioners, however impetuous and ill-balanced, were pioneers in opening up new fields of investigation, and in exploring new paths, which facilitated the progress of their successors in the search for scientific truths.

AGRIPPA

HEINRICH CORNELIUS AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, a German alchemist, philosopher, and cabalist, of n.o.ble ancestry, was born at Cologne, on the Rhine, September 14, 1486. Having received a liberal education and being by nature versatile, he became in his youth a secretary at the Court of the German Emperor, Maximilian I.

He served moreover in the army under that monarch, during several Italian campaigns, and by reason of gallantry, won the spurs of a knight. Becoming averse to the profession of arms, he studied with avidity law, medicine, philosophy, and languages, and in 1509 became Professor of Hebrew at Dole, in the department of Jura, France. Here his caustic humor and intemperate language involved him in quarrels with the monks, while his restless disposition impelled him to rove in search of adventure. He visited successively London, Pavia, and Metz, where he became a magistrate and town orator.

Having expressed opinions contrary to the prevalent beliefs in regard to saints and witches, he was forced to depart abruptly. We next hear of him as a practising physician in Fribourg, Switzerland. Thereafter he became a vagabond and almost a beggar. Like his contemporary, Paracelsus, he advanced the most paradoxical theories during his adventurous career, which latter was partly scientific and partly political, but always turbulent. Finally he established himself at Lyons, where he again practised medicine, and became physician to Louise of Savoy, Regent of France, and the mother of Francis I. Here Agrippa soon fell into disgrace and was banished. In 1528 he joined the Court of Margaret of Austria, ruler of the Netherlands, at Antwerp. On the publication of his work, "On the Vanity of the Sciences," he was imprisoned for a year at Brussels.

Upon his release, he returned to Lyons, where he was again detained in custody, on account of an old libel against his former patroness.

His death occurred at Gren.o.ble, France, February 18, 1535.

Agrippa was possessed of great versatility and learning, but his writings are tinctured with bitterness and satire. He has been described as restless, ambitious, enthusiastic, and credulous, a dupe himself and a deceiver of others. His career was a continuous series of disappointments and quarrels.

Yet he was an earnest searcher after truth, who was fain to attempt the unlocking of Nature's secrets, but did not hold the right key.

Profoundly superst.i.tious, he taught, for example, that the herb, _Verbena officinalis_, vervain, would cure tertian or quartan fevers according to the manner in which it was divided or cut. Agrippa has been tersely described as a "meteor of philosophy."

CARDAN

JEROME CARDAN, an Italian physician, author, mathematician and philosopher, was born at Pavia, September 24, 1501. He was the illegitimate son of Facio Cardan, a man of repute among the learned in his neighborhood, from whom Jerome received instruction in his youth.

Although idolized by his mother, he incurred his father's dislike, and these circ.u.mstances, we are told, exerted a peculiar influence upon his character. Despite many difficulties, however, he achieved both fame and notoriety. After having received degrees in arts and medicine from the University of Padua, he became Professor of Mathematics at Milan in 1534, and later was admitted to the College of Physicians in that city.

In 1547 he declined an invitation to become court physician at Copenhagen, on account of the harsh northern climate and the obligation to change his religion. In the year 1552 Jerome Cardan visited Scotland at the request of John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, whom he treated for asthma with success. Thence he was summoned to England to give his professional advice in the case of Edward VI, after which he returned to Milan with enhanced prestige. He afterwards practised Medicine at Pavia and Bologna and finally settled at Rome, where he received a pension from the Pope. His death occurred there, September 21, 1575.

Cardan was possessed of great natural ability, and for a time was regarded as the most eminent physician and astrologer among his contemporaries. But his mind was of a peculiar cast, and his temper most inconstant. He had, says Peter Bayle, in his "Historical Dictionary," a decided love of paradox, and of the marvellous, an infantine credulity, a superst.i.tion scarce conceivable, an insupportable vanity, and a boasting that knew no limits. His works, though full of puerilities and contradictions, of absurd tales and charlatanry of every description, nevertheless offer proofs of a bold, inventive genius, which seeks for new paths of science, and succeeds in finding them. According to his own statement, he found pleasure in roaming about the streets all night long. His love of gaming amounted to a mania. Baron von Leibnitz (1646-1716) wrote of Cardan, that notwithstanding his faults, he was a great man, and without his defects, would have been incomparable. He wrote extensively on philosophy, mathematics, and medicine, and also on chiromancy. For his own follies and misfortunes he apologized, attributing them all to the influence of the stars. He has been described as a genuine philosopher and devotee of science, and his lasting reputation is chiefly due to his discoveries in algebra, in which art, wrote the historian, Henry Hallam, he made a great epoch.

BALSAMO

One of the most notorious charlatans of the eighteenth century was Giuseppe Balsamo, who was born at Palermo, Sicily, June 2, 1743. Though of humble origin, this arch-impostor a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, and styled himself Grand Cophta, Prophet and Thaumaturge. He married Lorenza Feliciani, the daughter of a girdle-maker of Rome. Balsamo professed alchemy and free-masonry, practised medicine and sorcery, and raised money by various methods of imposture. He rode about in his own coach, attended by a numerous retinue in rich liveries. His attire consisted of an iron-gray coat, a scarlet waistcoat trimmed with gold lace, and red breeches. His jaunty hat was adorned with a white feather, and handsome rings encircled his fingers. He carried a sword after the fashion of the times, and his shoe-buckles shone like flashing jewels.

Balsamo was a man of great energy; gifted with persuasive eloquence which seemed to exercise a charm over his hearers. Having rare natural abilities, he enriched his mind by diligent studies and observations of human nature, during his tours abroad. But in spite of these advantages he failed to rise above the sphere of an unscrupulous charlatan.

In 1780 he settled in Strasburg, where he established a reputation by some marvellous cures. Here was the culmination of his fame and fortune.

Five years later he came to Paris, where he became implicated in the notorious affair of the "Diamond Necklace," and was imprisoned in the Bastille for some months. His death occurred at the fortress of Saint Leon, Rome, in 1795. A sublimer rascal never breathed, wrote W.

Russell, LL.D., in "Eccentric Personages." Balsamo had unlimited faith in the gullibility of mankind, and was amply endowed with the gifts which enable their possessor to shear the simpletons of society.

GREATRAKES

VALENTINE GREATRAKES was born at Affane, County of Waterford, Ireland, on Saint Valentine's Day, February 14, 1628. He was educated a Protestant at the free school of Lismore near his home, and at Trinity College, Dublin.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1641, his mother fled with him to England and took refuge in Devonshire, where he devoted himself to the study of the cla.s.sics and divinity. Afterwards Greatrakes served for seven years in Cromwell's army, holding a commission as lieutenant of cavalry under Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. In 1656 he left the army and returned to Affane, where he was appointed a magistrate and served as such with credit.

Soon after the Restoration, in obedience to a divine impulse, he began practice as a healer of various diseases by the method known as laying-on of hands, stroking, or touching, which had been employed by the sovereigns of England, from the time of Edward the Confessor.

Greatrakes's success was immediate and phenomenal. People flocked to him so rapidly, we are told, from all quarters, that "his barns and out-houses were crammed with innumerable specimens of suffering humanity." In 1665 he returned to England, where he performed many seemingly marvellous cures; and came to be regarded as a greater miracle-worker than King Charles II himself. But after an investigation and adverse report by members of the Royal Society, his practice fell into disrepute, and he retired to his native land, where he sojourned in obscurity until his death, which is supposed to have occurred after the year 1682. One David Lloyd, a biographer, issued a tract ent.i.tled "Wonders no Miracles, or Mr. Valentine Greatrakes' Gift of Healing Examined," wherein he endeavored to show that the famous "Irish stroaker" was little better than an impostor. In reply to this, Greatrakes published a pamphlet, vindicating his methods, with testimonials from persons of quality and distinction.

Greatrakes has been described as a man of unimpeachable integrity, a highly respectable member of society, and incapable of attempting to deceive by fraud. Notoriety was distasteful to him, and in this respect he was above the plane of an ordinary charlatan. An enthusiast, he believed himself to be invested with divine healing powers. His success was surely due to forcible therapeutic suggestions communicated by him to the minds of highly imaginative and credulous people, who reposed confidence in his methods. It mattered not that they believed the cures of their nervous disorders to be wrought solely through the physical agency of laying-on of hands, whereby some mysterious healing force, magnetic or otherwise, was communicated to them.

In attempting an explanation of the cures wrought by Greatrakes, Henry Stubbe, a contemporary writer, affirmed that "G.o.d had bestowed upon Mr.

Greatarick a peculiar temperament, or composed his body of some particular ferments, and the effluvia thereof, sometimes by a light, sometimes by a violent friction, restore the temperament of the debilitated parts, reinvigorate the blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous ferments out of the bodies of the diseased, by the eyes, nose, hands and feet." There is nothing recorded in regard to Greatrakes's methods (says Professor Joseph Jastrow, in "Fact and Fable in Psychology"), which definitely suggests the production of the hypnotic state; but direct suggestion, reinforced by manipulation, obviously had much to do with the cures.

In 1666 the Chamberlain of the Worcester Corporation expended ten pounds, fourteen shillings in an entertainment for "Mr. Greatrix, an Irishman famous for helping and curing many lame and diseased people, only by stroking of their maladies with his hand and therefore sent for to this and many other places."

From a letter written by Greatrakes to the Archbishop of Dublin, it appears that he believed himself to be inspired of G.o.d, for the purpose of curing disease. He received lavish hospitality in many homes, when at the height of his popularity, and was regarded as a phenomenal adept in the art of healing by touch.[257:1]

If there exists such a thing as the "gift of healing," Greatrakes appears to have possessed it. Dr. A. T. Schofield believes that in certain rare cases individuals are endowed with the faculty of curing by touch, to which the terms magnetic, psychic, occult, hypnotic, and mesmeric have been applied. This power is resident in the operator, and has nothing to do with suggestion; whereas in so-called faith-healing, the power is resident in the patient, who, by the exercise of faith, puts it into action.

Greatrakes has been described as having an agreeable personality, pleasant manners, a fine figure, gallant bearing, a handsome face, musical voice, and a good stock of animal spirits. Thus equipped, we may not wonder that he was ever welcome in merry company. He had an impulse or strange persuasion of his own mind (says J. Cordy Jeaffreson, in "A Book about Doctors") that he had the gift of curing the King's Evil. A second impulse gave him the power of healing ague, and a third "inspiration of celestial aura imparted to him command, under certain conditions, over all human diseases." Greatrakes adapted his manipulations to the requirements of individual cases. Oftentimes gentle stroking sufficed, but when the evil spirits were especially malignant, he employed energetic ma.s.sage. Occasionally the demon fled, "like a well-bred dog," at the word of command, but more frequently the victory was not won until the healer had rubbed himself into a red face, and a copious perspiration.

It is narrated that when Greatrakes was practising in London, a rheumatic and gouty patient came to him. "Ah," said the healer, colloquially, "I have seen a good many spirits of this kind in Ireland.

They are watery spirits, who bring on cold shivering and excite an overflow of aqueous humor in our poor bodies." Then, addressing the demon, he continued: "Evil spirit, who has quitted thy dwelling in the waters, to come and afflict this miserable body, I command thee to quit thy new abode, and to return to thine ancient habitation."[258:1]

From among a large number of testimonials of cures performed by Greatrakes, a single example may suffice.

MR. SQUIBB'S LETTER TO MR. BOREMAN

SIR,

Whereas you are pleased to enquire after the Cure, by G.o.d's means done upon me, by the stroking of my head by Mr.

Greatrakes; These are thoroughly to inform you that being violently troubled with an excessive pain of the head, that I had hardly slept six hours in six days and nights, and taken but very little of sustenance in that time; and being but touch'd by him, I immediately found ease, and (thanks be to G.o.d) do continue very well; and do further satisfie you, that the rigour of the pain had put me into a high Fever, which immediately ceas'd with my head-ache: and do likewise further inform you that a Servant being touch'd for the same pain, that had continu'd upon him for twelve years last past, he touch'd him in the forehead, and the pain went backward; and that but by his stroking upon the outside of his cloaths, the pain came down to and out of his foot: the party continues still well. These Cures were wrought about 3 weeks before Easter.