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 MEDICAL BOOKS 
 
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 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD. 
 
 Facsimile of leaf containing the concluding sentences of Book I, and the beginning 
 of the list of chapters of Book II. From the B. Mus. MS. Reg. 12, D. xvii, fol. 58 b ; 
 written 900-950 A.D. See A.-S. L., Vol. II, p. 158.
 
 THE FITZ-PATRICK 
 LECTURES FOR 1903 
 
 JNGLISH MEDICINE IN THE 
 ANGLO-SAXON TIMES 
 
 TWO LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE ROYAL COLLEGE 
 OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON, JUNE 23 AND 25, 1903 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH FRANK PAYNE, M.D. OXON. 
 
 Fellow and Harveian Librarian of the College of Physicians ; Fellow 
 
 of the University of London ; Consulting Physician to St. Thomas's 
 
 Hospital ; sometime Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford 
 
 WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
 
 141 
 
 > 
 
 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 IT is right to say that these Lectures have been 
 altered since they were delivered, and expanded by 
 the introduction of extracts from the works discussed 
 and of other matter. 
 
 I have thankfully to acknowledge the help which 
 I have received from Dr. Henry Bradley, who has 
 corrected a large number of inaccuracies in Mr. 
 Cockayne's translation of the Anglo-Saxon texts ; 
 and has made other important suggestions, of which 
 I have been glad to avail myself. Professor Skeat 
 has kindly allowed me to consult him upon some 
 points. I must also express my thanks to the 
 Delegates of the Clarendon Press for undertaking 
 this book, and for illustrating it so fully. 
 
 The illustrations have been chiefly taken from 
 MSS. in the British Museum, and have been first 
 carefully copied in black and white by Miss E. A. 
 Ibbs ; since the faded and sometimes defective 
 coloured figures do not always come out well in 
 direct photography. Four cuts are taken from 
 a paper by the author in the Transactions of the 
 Bibliographical Society, by permission of the Council
 
 iv PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 of that Society. Three blocks have already appeared 
 in the British Medical Journal', the rest are new. 
 The facsimile which forms the frontispiece is from 
 a precious MS. in the British Museum, the only 
 surviving copy of the oldest medical book in the 
 English language.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 LECTUEE I 
 
 PAKT PAGE 
 
 I. INTKODUCTION ........ i 
 
 THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE A 
 
 II. HISTORY or ANGLO-SAXON MEDICINE ... 7 
 HISTORICAL EEFERENCES . . . . . .10 
 
 THE VENERABLE BEDE . . . . . .15 
 
 THE DEATH, BURIAL, AND EEINTERMENT OF SAINT 
 
 ....... 22 
 
 III. THE ANGLO-SAXON MEDICAL LITERATURE . . 29 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD . . . . -39 
 SUMMARY ........ 61 
 
 IV. THE 'HERBARIUM' OF APULEIUS . . . . 62 
 
 EAVENS' LEEK (a Species of Orchis) . . 69 
 
 MUGWORT (Artemisia vulgaris) ... 70 
 
 BROWNWORT (Ceterach officinarum) ... 70 
 
 YARROW (Achillea millefoUum) . . . 71 
 
 MANDRAGORA (Mandrake. Atropa Mandragord) 72 
 
 THE FIGURES OF HERBS . ... 76 
 
 ENGLISH NAMES OF HERBS ..... 79
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 PART PAGE 
 
 I. ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 83 
 
 II. CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE ... 94 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHARMS . . . . . .114 
 
 i. CHARMS AND CEREMONIES EMPLOYED IN GATHER- 
 ING MEDICINAL HERBS, ETC. . . .116 
 ii. CHARMS IN THE MORE ORDINARY SENSE, THAT is, 
 MYSTICAL WORDS PRONOUNCED OR WRITTEN 
 
 DOWN . . . . . . .119 
 
 in. EXORCISM OF DISEASES ..... 125 
 
 iv. NARRATIVE CHARMS ..... 128 
 
 v. MATERIAL MAGIC, OR AMULETS . . . 132 
 vi. TRANSFERENCE OF DISEASE BY A VERBAL FORMULA, 
 OR BY A CEREMONY TO SOME ANIMAL OR 
 MATERIAL OBJECT, OR IN SOME WAY TO THE 
 OUTSIDE WORLD . . . . .134 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS 136 
 
 A LAY OF THE VIRTUES OF WORTS . . 137 
 
 III. THE TREATISE HEPI AIAAEEON . . . .143 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE SALERNITAN 'PRACTICA* WITH 
 
 THE SAXON LEECH BOOK . . . .154 
 LAST PERIOD OF ANGLO-SAXON MEDICINE . . 157 
 HEALING BY THE KOYAL TOUCH . . . .158 
 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . 159
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD . . . Frontispiece 
 FIG. i. KAVENS' LEEK, OR SATYRION . 
 
 2. THE MEDICINAL SQUILL .... 
 
 3. MANDRAGORA 
 
 4. MANDRAGORA, WITH THE DOG . 
 
 5. MANDRAGORA, WITH THE DOG, AND TWO 
 
 FIGURES CARRYING IMPLEMENTS . 
 
 6. MANDRAGORA 
 
 7. PLANTAGO, PLANTAIN .... 
 
 8. OLYXATRUM ...... 
 
 9. ORBICULARIS ...... 
 
 10. HERB CALLED HELIOTROPION . 
 
 11. 'NADDER WORT,' BASILISCA . . . \attheend 
 
 12. HERB, MEANT FOR WHITE HELLEBORE . 
 
 13. SCORPION ...... 
 
 14. SlGELHWEORFA, OR HELIOTROPION . 
 
 15. GLADDEN, OR GLADIOLUS 
 
 1 6. MECON, OR EED POPPY .... 
 
 17. MERCURY BRINGING THE SACRED MOLY . 
 
 1 8. LACTUCA LEPORINA ..... 
 
 19. PYONIA, PEONY 
 
 20. PAPAVER SILVATICUM .... 
 
 21. ARISTOLOCHIA, OR SMEAR WORT 
 
 22. CYNOGLOSSUM, HOUND'S-TONGUE . . ,
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 A. D. 597 Introduction of Christianity by Augustine. 
 
 668 Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 School of Theodore and Adrian. 
 
 685 John of Beverley, disciple of Theodore. 
 
 about 730 Bede's Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 732 Bishop Egbert founds the school of York. 
 
 785 First incursions of the Northmen. 
 
 802 Egbert, King of Wessex, first king of all England. 
 
 878 Alfred defeats the Danes at Ethandun. 
 
 901 Death of Alfred. 
 
 900-950 Leech Book of Bald and Cild. Various 
 Leechdoms. 
 
 937 Athelstan defeats Northmen at Brunanburg. 
 
 1000-1050 English version of Herbarium of Apuleius. 
 
 1017 Canute becomes king of England. 
 
 1043 Edward the Confessor crowned. 
 
 1066 Death of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 Norman Conquest. 
 
 1100-1150 English version of Peri Didaxeon. 
 
 about 1150 Second English version of Apuleius. 
 
 1 154 End of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
 
 LECTUKE I 
 
 PAKT I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, It is my first, and a pleasing 
 duty, to thank you and the College for the honour 
 conferred upon me by choosing me as the first 
 Fitz-Patrick Lecturer. And it is right also that 
 before entering on the subject of these lectures, 
 I should in a few words explain the origin and aim 
 of this new foundation. This lectureship owes its 
 existence to the munificence of a lady, Mrs. 
 Fitz-Patrick, who desires in this way to honour 
 the memory of her late husband, Dr. Fitz-Patrick, 
 member of this College, a physician of great worth, 
 learning, and accomplishments, and at the same 
 time to promote an object in which Dr. Fitz-Patrick 
 himself was much interested, the advancement of 
 the study of medical history. This pious and 
 generous gift deserves not only what have been 
 gladly rendered, the most cordial thanks of our 
 College, but due recognition from all who are in- 
 terested in the progress of the two sciences, medicine 
 and history, which it is designed to serve. 
 
 For the following particulars respecting Dr. Fitz- 
 Patrick I am indebted to my friend, Dr. Norman 
 Moore : 
 
 ' Dr. Thomas Fitz-Patrick, who must hereafter be
 
 2 LECTURE I: PART I 
 
 mentioned as one of our benefactors, was born in 
 1832 at Virginia, a little country town standing at 
 the end of a long lake at Cavan, where his father, 
 who was a substantial tenant of Lord Headfort's, 
 resided. He was educated first at the college in 
 the town of Carlow, and afterwards at Trinity 
 College, Dublin, where he obtained several prizes 
 and graduated M.D. His first professional occupa- 
 tion was the dispensary of Moynalty, a village in 
 Meath, not far from Virginia. Here he made 
 valuable friends, who encouraged his reading and 
 taste for literature. 
 
 ' Dr. Fitz-Patrick afterwards went to India in the 
 medical service of the East India Company, but 
 becoming seriously ill there, soon returned and 
 began practice in London, where Lord Headfort's 
 family and other friends encouraged him to settle. 
 Here he soon found a circle of friends and patients 
 who remained attached to him throughout his life. 
 He became a member of our College in 1868. 
 
 ' Dr. Fitz-Patrick was born in a district of Ireland 
 with many literary associations, the birthplace of 
 several old Irish poets, musicians, and historians, and 
 in the i8th century the home of writers such as 
 Henry Brook and Thomas Sheridan. The varied 
 literary associations of his native district had, Dr. 
 Moore thinks, a great eifect in giving Fitz-Patrick 
 a taste for literature of all kinds. 
 
 * He was a man imbued with learning, well read 
 in Homer and in Lucretius, and a student of the 
 Spanish text of Don Quixote. Besides Spanish, he
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 knew Italian, French, and German, as well as some- 
 thing of Hebrew, of modern Greek, and of Danish. 
 His knowledge of English literature was extensive 
 and his taste good. He had travelled as well as 
 read, and having thus accumulated all the materials 
 for conversation, he was a delightful companion. 
 His intellectual attainments were the ornaments of 
 solid virtues, and he deserves to be remembered with 
 honour in this honourable place.' 
 
 It is with great pleasure that I quote these words, 
 and feel assured that they well describe the physician 
 with whose name these lectures are associated. 
 
 In assigning the history of medicine as the 
 subject of this lectureship, the foundress has been 
 guided by the wise advice of our eminent Fellow, 
 Dr. Norman Moore, who was an intimate friend 
 of our deceased member. 
 
 While, therefore, the warmest thanks of the 
 College are due, and have been already expressed 
 to Mrs. Fitz-Patrick for her munificent gift, we must 
 also recognize the great services of Dr. Norman 
 Moore, to whom we understand the conception of 
 this scheme, and the plan under which it is to be 
 carried out, are due. It may seem to many, as it 
 seemed to me, that he would most appropriately 
 have filled the post of the first Fitz-Patrick Lecturer. 
 I would rather that he had been here instead of 
 myself. It was only when I was assured that he, 
 with generous self-abnegation, but decidedly, declined 
 to be appointed, that I felt justified in accepting the 
 honourable task which the President and Censors
 
 4 LECTURE I: PART I 
 
 have entrusted to me. I can only say that I will 
 do my best. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 
 
 We must confess, with some shame, that our own 
 country has been, and is behind most other civilized 
 nations in the bulk and value of its contributions 
 to the history of medicine. Germany, France, and 
 Italy have produced, on this subject, brilliant and 
 profound works, which remain our standard au- 
 thorities. The smaller countries such as Holland 
 and Switzerland have not been behindhand ; while 
 our cousins across the Atlantic are now displaying 
 characteristic energy and zeal in the study of 
 medical antiquities. They have indeed already 
 produced, in the Surgeon General's Catalogue of 
 Dr. Billings, by far the most complete bibliography 
 of medicine, and probably the best bibliography of 
 any large branch of science, ever compiled in any 
 age or country. 
 
 When we consider the interest shown, and the 
 positive results achieved in medical history, by the 
 medical profession in all these countries, we must 
 admit that our own countrymen have displayed, in 
 comparison, lamentable apathy and but little 
 industry. In one department of the subject 
 certainly, that is in medical biography, we have 
 important works to show ; for the Roll of our 
 College as written by our late Librarian, Dr. Munk, 
 is certainly unsurpassed, if not unequalled, in any 
 foreign country, and other standard medical bio- 
 graphies might be mentioned.
 
 THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 5 
 
 We have also interesting collections for the 
 history of medical institutions, such as the 
 Memorials of the Craft of Surgery in England by 
 the late Mr. J. F. South, edited by Mr. D'Arcy 
 Power ; the Annals of the Company of Barber 
 Surgeons-, and good histories of the Colleges and 
 Faculties of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh, 
 Glasgow, and Dublin. Mr. RashdalTs important 
 and learned work The Universities of Europe in 
 the Middle Ages deals with some important periods 
 in medical education. The Early English Text 
 Society has published some interesting mediaeval 
 works on medicine. Finally we have in Dr. E. H. 
 Withington's Medical History from the Earliest 
 Times (London, 1894) an excellent compendium, 
 which is less widely known than it deserves to be. 
 
 But although these valuable materials for history- 
 have been collected, the amount is not very great, 
 and the work of collating them has not been 
 attempted. England is conspicuous among European 
 countries for the zeal with which her political, social, 
 and literary history has been investigated, and 
 especially for the unrivalled series of records and 
 memorials which have been collected for the purpose 
 of such investigations. But the history of science 
 generally, and especially of medicine and surgery, 
 has been deplorably neglected. We have done 
 little for medical history in general ; but relatively 
 almost less for our own medical history. The 
 history of medicine in Britain, it is not too much 
 to say, remains to be written. If in the standard
 
 6 LECTURE I: PART I 
 
 medical histories we may sometimes think that 
 British medicine is inadequately represented ; this 
 is not the fault of the historians. It is our fault for 
 not having supplied them with adequate materials. 
 
 The foundation which is this day inaugurated is 
 the first attempt to have the history of medicine 
 taught or expounded in this country. In consider- 
 ing therefore what department of this vast field 
 could be advantageously treated within the narrow 
 limits of these two lectures, it seemed best to begin 
 with that part which has been most neglected, the 
 history of medicine in our own country. 
 
 The range of the inquiry cannot be wide. It is 
 limited no less by the powers and knowledge of the 
 lecturer than by the short time at his disposal. It 
 would be impossible to cover more than a small 
 period of history, and that imperfectly. But if we 
 were to attempt, however inadequately, to lay some- 
 thing like the first stone of the history of English 
 medicine : to make a rough beginning which, it is 
 to be hoped, may be revised and corrected, as well 
 as continued by other and better equipped investi- 
 gators ; this attempt, though humble, might not be 
 without fruit. 
 
 The expression 'English medicine,' which it is 
 necessary to use, implies a still further limitation. 
 There was no doubt in all the Celtic countries 
 a traditional popular medicine, which has little or 
 nothing to do with the subject of these lectures. 
 Pliny has recorded how the Druids in Gaul and 
 Britain gathered with mystical ceremonies the
 
 THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 7 
 
 sacred mistletoe ; and mentions also how they 
 collected medicinal plants with special rites, im- 
 plying that the priesthood possessed a herbal 
 medicine, of which the knowledge was apparently 
 confined to themselves 1 . In Wales there seems to 
 have been an original and hereditary medical 
 profession. Ireland had a medical literature, though 
 I believe of later date than what I propose to 
 consider. 
 
 But with Celtic medical history I should be quite 
 incompetent to deal, eVen in the most superficial 
 way, and must therefore pass it over entirely. 
 
 It remains then to begin with the earliest record 
 of the English, people settled in England, our Anglo- 
 Saxon ancestors ; and try to form for ourselves some 
 idea of what medical science and medical practice 
 meant in those early times. It is there that we find 
 the real beginning of English medicine. 
 
 PAET II 
 
 HISTORY OF ANGLO-SAXON MEDICINE 
 
 When we inquire into the state of medicine 
 among ancient peoples in any bygone time, there 
 are several sources of information which we have 
 
 1 Druidical rites were still kept up in Britain after they had 
 been suppressed in Gaul by Tiberius (Plin. Nat. Hist. XXX. 4). 
 The herb Selago was to be gathered with the right hand without 
 the use of iron by a consecrated person in a white robe with feet 
 scrupulously washed. Samolus was to be gathered with the left 
 hand, by a fasting person, who was not to look behind him (ibid. 
 XXIV. 62, 63). Some of these ceremonies were observed in 
 much later times.
 
 8 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 to examine. We have to inquire what general 
 history and literature tell us about the medical 
 profession since we assume that there have always 
 been doctors of one kind or another. We ask 
 whether any laws are still extant showing the 
 relations of the profession to society. Besides 
 written documents, we search for monuments or 
 inscriptions, often more trustworthy than books, 
 bearing upon the subject. We examine con- 
 temporary works of art for representations of 
 medical scenes or personages. We look over the 
 material antiquities preserved in museums, such as 
 weapons, instruments, household gear, to discover 
 surgical instruments as evidences of the state of 
 medical and surgical art in those periods. Finally, 
 more important and more copious in the supply of 
 information than all these put together, we examine 
 the literature of medicine itself, for where this is 
 wanting, we can form but a very inadequate notion 
 of the state of medicine at any particular time. 
 
 Now, applying these principles to the case of 
 Anglo-Saxon medicine, we may consider which of 
 the above sources of information are available. 
 As to the evidence from history and literature, 
 that furnishes, as we shall see, some interesting 
 particulars about the medical profession. In the 
 case of many ancient countries their laws throw 
 much light on the subject of medical practice. 
 There has been lately published, from inscriptions, 
 the Code of Laws of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, 
 in the twenty-third century B. c., which contains
 
 ANGLO-SAXON MEDICINE 9 
 
 thirteen articles regulating medical practice. One 
 deals minutely with the responsibilities of a surgeon 
 performing operations on the eye \ 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon laws, on the other hand are 
 silent on the subject of medical practice ; but it 
 should be said that the collections of those laws 
 which have been printed make no pretension to 
 form a complete code, and only deal with a 
 limited class of social relations. 
 
 Again, from monuments and inscriptions we can 
 learn nothing for our purpose ; Greek and Eoman 
 remains of this kind, as is well known, have supplied 
 important materials for medical history ; and even 
 in our own country the few Roman antiquities 
 bearing on medicine which have been discovered, 
 supply the chief part of what we know about 
 Roman medicine in Britain, but there are no corre- 
 sponding Anglo-Saxon remains. In the relics of 
 Anglo-Saxon pictorial art, as contained in illumi- 
 nated MSS., there are, so far as I have been able to 
 discover, no representations of medical subjects. 
 Figures of medicinal plants form a distinct branch 
 of art which will be spoken of later. 
 
 It would be very interesting if some Anglo-Saxon 
 surgical instruments had survived, since we know 
 what a flood of light has been thrown on ancient 
 surgery by the discoveries of instruments at Pompeii, 
 Herculaneum, and elsewhere ; so that indeed the 
 
 1 J. de Morgan, Me'moires de la delegation en Perse, Tome IV, 
 Paris, 1902. Also The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, 
 B.C. 2285-2242. Translated by C. H. W. Johns. Edin. 1903.
 
 10 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 whole conception of Eoman surgery has been 
 altered. But so far as I know, our museums con- 
 tain no surgical instruments from Anglo-Saxon 
 times. 
 
 We fall back then upon the medical literature 
 itself, as being the chief and indeed, apart from 
 some brief historical allusions, the only source of 
 our knowledge about Anglo-Saxon medicine. The 
 history of medical literature forms a very large 
 part of medical history. If we open a standard 
 history of medicine, it may seem in some parts as 
 if it were little else than a history of books. One 
 feels that this is not quite just, as books contain but 
 a small part of medical activity through all the ages. 
 The author of a medical book is not necessarily 
 a fair representative of his class. He may have 
 been superior to the average. On the other hand, 
 the mere fact that what he wrote has survived does 
 not show him to have been a greater physician than 
 others of his contemporaries who wrote nothing, or 
 whose works are lost. Nevertheless since books 
 are in the end more enduring than wrought metal 
 or sculptured stone, medical writings are sometimes 
 the only evidence we have of the state of medicine 
 during long tracts of time. 
 
 HISTORICAL REFERENCES 
 
 Now to return to the evidence of general history 
 and literature, we have no evidence as to the state 
 of medicine in England before the introduction of 
 Latin Christianity by Augustine at the end of the
 
 HISTORICAL REFERENCES 11 
 
 sixth century. With regard to earlier times, we 
 can only conjecture that the Angles and Saxons 
 may have preserved some medical lore like that of 
 their German ancestors and kinsmen on the con- 
 tinent. The old Germans had a popular medicine, 
 which though partly connected with the worship 
 of the gods, was not exclusively in the hands 
 of a priestly caste like the Druids. Medicine 
 was largely practised by women ; and Tacitus 
 relates that warriors wounded in battle brought 
 their wounds to their mothers and wives to be 
 attended to. Such may have been the custom 
 of the heathen Saxons in England, but no record 
 of it remains ; and such customs would have 
 died out sooner here, since the Anglo-Saxons were 
 earlier converted to Christianity and brought in 
 contact with Latin culture than their continental 
 kinsmen. 
 
 From the earliest period at which history throws 
 any light upon the subject, we find clear evidence 
 of the existence of a medical profession, known in 
 the Latin writings as medici ; and in English books 
 as leeches. It seems a pity that we have lost this 
 useful word 'leech' which survived through the 
 Middle Ages (and according to Archbishop Trench, 
 much later in Ireland). At the present day we 
 much need a collective expression for Physician, 
 Surgeon, Apothecary, Doctor, Medical man, &c., 
 all of them either partial or ambiguous in meaning ; 
 and in place of the seven syllables ' medical 
 practitioner,' it would be a great convenience to
 
 12 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 use the one syllable ' leech.' There is no evidence 
 that the leeches were always ecclesiastics, indeed 
 the impression given is that they were often lay- 
 men. Contrary to the German tradition, there 
 seem to be no accounts of women acting as 
 leeches : though at a later time in the Middle Ages, 
 noble ladies often appear as skilful surgeons \ 
 
 We must now consider what references to medical 
 practice or teaching can be discovered in non- 
 medical writings before the medical literature proper 
 commences. 
 
 The beginning of learning and civilization in a 
 strict sense among the Anglo-Saxons cannot be 
 dated earlier than the introduction of Christianity 
 by Augustine in A.D. 597. How far this contributed 
 at first to the progress of medicine cannot be ascer- 
 tained. It is possible that the Christian missionaries 
 from Kome, as modern missionaries do in heathen 
 countries, brought with them some of the medical 
 lore or practice with which they were familiar, that 
 is the medicine of the Latin world ; but no trace of 
 it remains. It is more likely that they treated 
 disease, if at all, by prayers, unctions, and religious 
 rites according to the custom of the early church. 
 
 A more definite impulse was given to actual 
 
 1 In the old ballad of ' Sir Cauline/ when a wounded knight is 
 brought to the castle, the King calls out : 
 
 'Come down, come down, my daughter deare, 
 Thou art a leech of skill.' 
 
 In an English medical MS. of the fourteenth century, I find 
 a prescription composed by ' Lai y Beauchamp, the Earl's wife of 
 Warwick. 5
 
 HISTORICAL REFERENCES 13 
 
 learning by the arrival of Theodore, a learned Greek 
 monk of Tarsus, who became Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury in the seventh century, A. D. 669. Theodore 
 with his colleague the Abbot Adrian, also a learned 
 scholar, founded a school at Canterbury, where both 
 Latin and Greek were taught, so successfully, that 
 according to Bede, some of their scholars who were 
 living in his day, knew Greek and Latin as well 
 as their native tongue \ He taught also poetry, 
 astronomy and arithmetic. There is no mention 
 here of medicine ; but a curious and doubtless 
 authentic story (told by Bede) of one of Theodore's 
 pupils suggests that medicine was not entirely 
 neglected. This pupil, John of Beverley, Bishop 
 of Hexham and afterwards of York, from his learn- 
 ing and piety, had a reputation for working miracles. 
 He was canonized after his death, and 'St. John 
 of Beverley' became a favourite war-cry with the 
 English in their Scottish wars. When visiting 
 a nunnery at Wetadun (or Watton), in Yorkshire 
 he was told by the Abbess that one of the nuns was 
 suffering from a severe illness. She had lately been 
 bled in the arm, in consequence of which the arm 
 became painful and swollen, so that she seemed 
 about to die. The abbess begged the bishop to give 
 the sister his benediction, or at least touch her, 
 which the abbess was quite sure would cure her. 
 ' But on his inquiring when the maiden was bled, 
 and being told that it was on the fourth day of the 
 moon, he said " you have acted very unwisely and 
 1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, cap. 2.
 
 14 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 unskilfully in bleeding on the fourth day of the 
 moon ; for I remember that Archbishop Theodore, 
 of blessed memory, said that bleeding at that time 
 was very dangerous, when both the light of the 
 moon and the tide of the ocean are on their increase. 
 And what can I do for the maiden if she is at death's 
 door?"' 
 
 But moved by the entreaties of the abbess he 
 went in to see the sick girl, taking Bede (the 
 narrator) with him, and found her very ill. The 
 bishop said a prayer over her, and gave her his 
 blessing. Naturally, the patient felt immediately 
 better, and soon recovered. John of Beverley 
 performed, as Bede tells us, many similar cures 
 by prayers and benedictions. In one case, that of 
 a young priest who had concussion of the brain 
 in consequence of a fall from his horse, the efforts 
 of the bishop restored consciousness, and he then 
 called in a leech or physician and charged him to 
 set and bandage the fractured skull. It would 
 seem then that the bishop was not himself a leech. 
 
 These events must have happened a little before 
 A. D. 700 l . 
 
 We need not here discuss the miraculous powers 
 which Bede ascribed to his master, but the story 
 shows clearly that Archbishop Theodore had certain 
 pretensions to medical knowledge, and taught it in 
 some measure to his pupils. The rules as to right 
 and wrong days for bleeding were very minute 
 
 1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, translated by Rev. L. Gidley, 
 1870, pp. 386, 394. (Book V, Caps. 3, 6.)
 
 HISTORICAL REFERENCES 15 
 
 among the Anglo-Saxons, as will be shown later. 
 It should be observed that the reasons assigned by 
 the bishop for avoiding certain days were physical 
 facts, not superstitions. The second story shows 
 that there was a class of leeches or physicians. 
 
 Further evidence of the existence of medical 
 learning among the clergy is furnished by St. Ald- 
 helm, a learned monk, Bishop of Dorchester, in A. D. 
 705, founder and Abbot of the Abbey of Malmesbury. 
 He mentions seven sciences which ought to be 
 studied, that is, in addition to the four sciences of 
 the Quadrivium, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, 
 Astronomy, three others, viz. : Astrology, Mechanics, 
 and Medicine l . It is highly probable that monks, 
 and perhaps other clerical persons, learned and 
 practised medicine, though it would not follow that 
 all physicians or leeches were clerical. 
 
 THE VENERABLE BEDE 
 
 The name Bede leads one to ask whether that 
 great man, the noblest character in the Saxon 
 Church, no less famed for his extraordinary learn- 
 ing (as learning was in those days), than for his 
 piety and zeal, and known to after ages as the 
 Venerable, possessed or taught any medical lore. 
 
 1 Aldhelm's De Laude Virginitatis, quoted by Wright, Bio- 
 graphia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period, 1842, p. 70. 
 If this programme was really carried out, the monks of 
 Malmesbury must have studied medicine ; but good authorities 
 say that it was merely a mediaeval commonplace, and proves 
 nothing about the actual studies of the place.
 
 16 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 Among Bede's numerous writings there are some 
 on scientific subjects. He wrote De Natura Rerum, 
 1 On the Nature of Things,' a treatise of astronomy 
 and cosmogony ; also De Temporibus, ' On Times/ 
 that is on the seasons of the year, a work in which 
 meteorology plays a great part, and other scientific 
 works. 
 
 But the only work dealing with medicine is 
 a short Latin tract on blood-letting, which the 
 editor of Bede's works, Dr. Giles, thought to be 
 probably genuine, and therefore admitted into his 
 standard edition. It is entitled De Minutione 
 Sanguinis sive de Phlebotomia.' 
 
 Although the title is a general one, the scope of the 
 tract is confined to laying down what are the right 
 and wrong days for bleeding, and especially warning 
 against the letting of blood on certain unlucky days. 
 The first paragraph may be translated as follows : 
 
 4 At any time by day or night, if need compels, 
 we must use phlebotomy in acute diseases ; and 
 especially in the time from the eighth of the 
 kalends of April to the seventh of the calends 
 of June (March 24th to May 25th) we have good 
 results from taking away blood, because then the 
 blood is undergoing increase.' 
 
 'But afterwards have to be taken into account 
 the qualities of the seasons, and the course of the 
 moon, that is the 5th, loth, 2oth, 25th, and 3oth 
 days of the moon V 
 
 1 Complete Works of the Venerable Bede, ed. by A. Giles, 
 London, 1843, vol. vi, p. 349.
 
 THE VENERABLE BEDE 17 
 
 Prognostics drawn from the age of the moon 
 were held to be important in various matters, such 
 as the fortune of those who happened to be born 
 on a particular day of the moon ; the success of 
 journeys or adventures begun on certain days and 
 special things which ought to be done on them. 
 All this is the subject of more than one of the 
 treatises reprinted in Mr. Cockayne's Anglo-Saxon 
 Leechdoms, along with prognostics from dreams, &c., 
 but as they are not medical, I do not say more 
 about them here 1 . Among other things in the 
 tract is a mention of the unlucky or dangerous days 
 in the year, called Aegyptiaci. This was a curious 
 old superstition that there were certain days which 
 were not only unlucky generally, but on which it was 
 especially dangerous to let blood or undergo any 
 medicinal treatment. Of these so-called ' Egyptian ' 
 days there were two in each month ; but three were 
 especially formidable. Bede in his authentic works 
 
 1 Prognostics from the moon's age. This recognition of certain 
 days of the moon's age as lucky or unlucky for beginning 
 journeys or other work seems not to have always met with the 
 approval of the Church, which is an additional reason for doubting 
 whether this tract is rightly ascribed to Bede, at all events in its 
 present form. St. Eloy (Eligius), Bishop of Noyon in France 
 about A.D. 640, in a fine sermon quoted by Maitland (The Dark 
 Ages, London, 1841, p. 150), speaks as follows: 
 
 'Let no Christian observe the day on which he leaves or 
 returns home ; for God made all the days. Let none regulate the 
 beginning of any piece of work by the day or by the moon. . . . 
 Neither let any one fear to set about any work at the new moon : 
 for God has made the moon on purpose to mark the times, and 
 to temper the darkness of the nights, not to hinder anybody's 
 work,' &c.
 
 18 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 refers to the Egyptians as the most accurate calcula- 
 tors, in the astronomical computations necessary to 
 draw up the Calendar; but he says nothing about 
 Egyptian days in the sense here intended. 
 The words of the tract are as follows : 
 
 ' There are many Egyptian days on which by no 
 means or for any necessity is it allowable to let 
 blood from man or beast, or to administer 
 a (medicinal) potion. But of these days three are 
 to be specially observed, viz., the eighth day of the 
 Ides of April (April 6th), the first Monday in 
 August, and the last Monday of December. This is 
 to be carefully borne in mind, because all the veins 
 are then full. 
 
 ' But if on those days an incision be made into 
 man or beast, (the patient) shall die immediately, 
 either on the same day or on the third day, or (at 
 least) shall not survive to the seventh day. And 
 whoever shall take a potion shall die on the fifteenth 
 day ; and any one, male or female, born on those 
 days shall die an evil death, and whoever on these 
 days eats flesh of goose shall die on the fifteenth day.' 
 
 The Latin text being somewhat obscure and 
 corrupt, I give it in a footnote l . 
 
 1 ' Plures sunt dies Aegyptiaci, in quibus nullo modo nee per 
 ullam necessitatem licet homini vel pecori sanguinem minuere, 
 nee potionem impendere, sed ex his tribus [tres] maxime obser- 
 Vandi, octavo Idus April, illo die lunis [sic], intrante Augusto : 
 illo die lunis exeunte Decembri ; illo die lunis, cum multa 
 diligentia observandum est, quia omnes venae tune plenae sunt. 
 
 ' Qui in istis diebus hominem aut pecus incident, aut statim 
 uut in ipso die vel in tertio morietur, aut ad septimum diem non 
 perveniet ; et si potionem quis acceperit, quindecimo die morie- 
 tur ; et si masculus sive mulier in his diebus nati f uerint, mala 
 morte morientur; et si quis de auca in ipsis diebus manducaverit, 
 quindecimo die morietur.' (Op. cit., vol. vi, p. 350.)
 
 THE VENERABLE BEDE 19 
 
 This passage is almost literally reproduced in one 
 of the ' Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms,' of which I shall 
 have to speak later. 
 
 ' There are three days in the year which we call 
 Aegyptiaci, that is, in our tongue, dangerous days ; 
 in which by no means, for no occasion, neither 
 man's nor beasts' blood must be diminished ; that is, 
 the last Monday in April, the first Monday in 
 August, and the first Monday in January l . 
 
 Here the days are different, but the principle is 
 the same. In another 'Leechdom' a still more 
 elaborate account is given, though the word 
 Egyptian is not used. 
 
 ' The old leeches laid it down in Latin books 
 that there are always two days in every month 
 which are very dangerous for drinking any medical 
 potion, or for blood-letting; because there is one 
 hour in each of those days at which, if any vein is 
 opened, it is loss of life, or long disease. A leech 
 tested this, and let his horse blood at that hour, and 
 it soon lay dead.' 
 
 Then follows a list of the dangerous days in 
 each month through the year, which, though not 
 called Egyptian, are the same as those so called 
 elsewhere. It will not be necessary to enumerate 
 them 2 . 
 
 The belief in Egyptian or unlucky days, for which 
 Bede (if he really wrote this tract) is our earliest 
 English authority, was deeply rooted in England, as 
 in other countries. There is in the British Museum 
 
 1 A.-S. L., vol. iii, p. 77. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. iii, p. 153.
 
 20 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 an English MS. translation of Bede's tract, entitled 
 4 Medesyns approbate for mortal Sekenesses by 
 Saynte Bede,' in which occur the following words : 
 * (Whoever) of mankynde letteth hyme blode upon 
 any of these iii dayes he shall be dede withynne 
 five days nexte that followyn. These be iii forbode 
 dayes ; the firste is the last daye of Averil, the 
 secunde is the firste daye of Auguste, the thirde 
 is the firste daye of September.' 
 
 This I suppose to belong to the fourteenth 
 century 1 . 
 
 In a Latin medical MS. of somewhat later date 
 (in my library) I find the three fatal days are the 
 23rd of March, ist of August, and soth of November 2 . 
 It was thought unlucky that Richard I was con- 
 secrated at London on the 3rd day of September, 
 which was an Egyptian day. In early parish 
 registers, it is said, the term Egyptian days is 
 often found. One is reluctant to connect the name 
 of Bede with anything so trivial as this absurd 
 superstition, which, moreover, is mentioned only 
 in a little tract, of which the authenticity is not 
 beyond doubt 3 . 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. MS. Additional, 5467, fol. 71, 72. 
 
 2 Experimentum probatissimum. Qui in his tribus diebus 
 hominem aut pecudem percusserit, tertia die morietur, et qui in his 
 natus fuit mala morte morietur. It would seem here as if the ill 
 luck fell upon the striker or cutter (i.e. in bleeding), but probably 
 the patient is meant. 
 
 3 Dies Aegyptiaci. The origin of this name and of the belief 
 implied in it are still obscure. The name is explained as being 
 given because the Egyptians discovered or invented these 
 days; which, whether true or not, is just the sort of explanation
 
 THE VENERABLE BEDE 21 
 
 We pass then to his great work, The Ecclesi- 
 astical History of Britain. Bede's historical writings 
 have some medical importance on account of his 
 mention of epidemic diseases, and also for his 
 allusions to the social position and activity of the 
 medical profession in his times. His strictly clerical 
 point of view and the prevalent atmosphere of 
 miracle in his history are obvious enough ; but with 
 these features a judicious reader who can recognize 
 that any one could make up without knowing anything about 
 the matter. But even accepting this, it is not at all clear why 
 the Egyptians should have picked out two special days in each 
 month. It has been suggested that these days were indicated by 
 astrology, and that the Egyptians were acquainted with certain 
 injurious aspects or combinations of the heavenly bodies occurring 
 on those days. But it is not easy to conceive of such aspects or 
 combinations which would recur twice in each month. To find 
 the days, twelve Latin words forming two hexameters are given, 
 something like the well-known Memoria technica of Logic ; but 
 this, of course, throws no light on their origin. It is remarkable 
 that so many schoolmen and theologians should have written 
 upon the subject as may be found quoted in Ducange's Glossarium. 
 The earliest mention of Egyptian days quoted is by St. Augustine 
 (fourth century). It is possible, therefore, that from Augustine 
 Bede derived the idea, and transmitted it to the later Anglo- 
 Saxon leeches of the tenth and eleventh centuries. But I have 
 found these days mentioned also in a later Latin medical 
 treatise well known to the Anglo-Saxons, the Herbarium of 
 Apuleius Platonicus, as given in a MS. lately published by Sig. 
 Giacosa (Magistri Salernitani, &c., Torino, 1901, p. 349). It 
 might therefore have come from either source. In any case, the 
 belief would appear to have been common in late Roman or 
 early Christian times. But it was not a specially Christian 
 belief, being distinctly spoken of as a gentile superstition. There 
 is no mention of Egyptian days, so far as I know, in any Greek 
 or Latin classical medical writer. The real origin of the super- 
 stition was probably Babylonian rather than Egyptian.
 
 22 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 the piety and veracity of the great Anglian saint 
 will not seriously quarrel. 
 
 Some of Bede's narratives are well worth re- 
 peating. The following story, for instance, is of 
 some historical importance, since it enables us to 
 show that one at least of the epidemics of the 
 seventh century was true bubonic plague. In the 
 case of many of the so-called pestilences recorded 
 by Bede this cannot be positively established, 
 since the word pestilentia, as used by old writers, is 
 ambiguous. 
 
 THE DEATH, BURIAL, AND REINTERMENT OP 
 SAINT ^EDILTHRYD 
 
 JEdilthryd, daughter of Anna, King of the East 
 Angles, known in the Eoman calendar as Saint 
 Audry, was married to Ecgfrid, King of the 
 Northumbrians, with whom she lived for twelve 
 years in the state of virginity. Then, embracing a 
 religious life, she founded the nunnery of Ely, in 
 East Anglia, A.D. 673. After seven years' rule as 
 abbess she is said to have predicted a pestilence 
 which shortly followed, foretelling also her own 
 death, and declaring the number of those who should 
 die of the disease from her own house. Dying of 
 the pestilence about A. D. 679 or 680, the abbess was 
 buried among her own people in a wooden coffin. 
 
 The story goes on to say that sixteen years after 
 her death it was thought fit to transfer the body of 
 the sacred virgin to the church and place it in a 
 marble coffin. When the grave was opened the
 
 DEATH OF SAINT ^EDILTHRYD 23 
 
 body was found as whole and uncorrupted as if she 
 had been buried the same day. A physician, 
 Cynefrid, who was present both at her death and 
 at her reinterment, was a witness to the fact, and 
 added one curious circumstance in confirmation of 
 it. He had, he said, been ordered to lance a large 
 tumour which the abbess in her last illness had 
 under her jaw. The operation gave some relief, but 
 the patient died three days afterwards. 
 
 At the reinterment, says Cynefrid, he found the 
 wound of the incision which he had made healed up 
 in a wonderful manner, so that, instead of the 
 gaping wound with which she had been buried, 
 there appeared only the slightest trace of a 
 scar ! . 
 
 Apart from the supposed miraculous preservation 
 of the saint's body, for which there may have been 
 some physical basis, it is clear from the above 
 narrative that there was an epidemic of a fatal 
 disease, accompanied with glandular swellings, i. e. 
 bubonic plague, in East Anglia about the year 
 A.D. 680 2 . 
 
 1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, Cap. 19. Trans. 
 Gidley, 1870, p. 330. 
 
 2 Bede mentions a previous pestilence in 664 (the year of 
 a solar eclipse), which is stated to have raged in Ireland in the 
 same year, and another in 674. A severe plague occurred at 
 Rome in 680, and again in the year 690, the latter being 
 expressly called Pestis Inguinaria. These records show the 
 prevalence of the plague in Europe at the end of the seventh 
 century. The last great mortality recorded in the Supplement 
 to Bede's History, A.D. 7601, would seem to have heen distinct 
 from bubonic plague (Noah Webster's History of Epidemic
 
 24 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, our only authority in 
 medical matters up to the eighth century, contains 
 many other references to medici, or leeches. These 
 allusions show that there was a regular pro- 
 fession of medicine, but do not show definitely what 
 was the social status of the leeches, nor even whether 
 they were clerics or laymen. There must have been 
 some kind of military surgery, for we find that in 
 A.D. 685, Hrothere, King of the Cantuarii, was 
 wounded in battle, and died under medical treat- 
 ment. The leeches seem, however, to have been in 
 
 Diseases, 1800, Vol. I, p. 162; Encyclop. Britannica, gth ed., 
 art. Plague). 
 
 With regard to the wonderful preservation of the Holy 
 abbess's body, it is to be observed that similar stories are told 
 of saintly personages, and of some not saintly, in all ages. 
 It is not necessary to assume either a miracle or a mere 
 invention. The appearances thus described would be caused by 
 the formation of adipocere, which is often found when a body is 
 buried or preserved in a cold and damp situation ; and thus the 
 abbess's body, enclosed in a wooden coffin and buried under 
 the damp marshy soil of the undrained Isle of Ely, would be in 
 conditions very favourable for this change. If it be asked why 
 the same change was not observed in the bodies of the humble 
 nuns as in that of the saintly abbess, the answer is obvious, that 
 the bodies of the nuns were not exhumed. When the fatty 
 tissues are completely transformed into adipocere, no further 
 decomposition takes place for an indefinite period. A case of 
 this kind caused great astonishment and became a public 
 spectacle in London in the middle of the seventeenth century ; 
 the body of a citizen who had been buried thirty-four years in 
 the chancel of St. Leonard's, Eastcheap, being found sound and 
 undecayed. In this case it was noted that the fat on the body 
 was as hard as white wax and very thick ; evidently adipocere. 
 It is described in a curious tract entitled Immortality in Mortality 
 magnified, 4to, London, 1647.
 
 DEATH OF SAINT ^EDILTHRYD 25 
 
 a somewhat subordinate position, since in Bede's 
 narratives they generally act under the orders of 
 a prelate or ecclesiastic, and are called in mostly for 
 some surgical work. As many of the higher clergy 
 had a great reputation for working miraculous cures, 
 one sees that the ordinary leech was kept in the 
 background, and that his mere pedestrian medicine 
 and surgery would hardly keep pace with the bril- 
 liant thaumaturgy of the ecclesiastics. A more 
 unfavourable atmosphere for the growth of scientific 
 medicine or the development of a regular medical 
 profession can hardly be imagined. 
 
 But if, without applying too strictly the hard scep- 
 ticism of modern times, we look into these narratives 
 of miraculous cures, we sometimes find them more 
 rational than appears at first sight. They do not 
 always deserve either the veneration claimed for a 
 miracle or the obloquy deserved by an imposture. 
 
 For instance, the celebrated St. John of Beverley, 
 before mentioned, being accustomed at the begin- 
 ning of Lent to seek out some specially sick or poor 
 person to whom he might do good, found a boy who 
 was completely dumb, so that when he came to the 
 bishop to receive alms he could not speak a single 
 word. He was, however, as appears, not deaf. 
 Besides this, he had so much scurf and scab on his 
 head that no hair would ever grow there, but only 
 some bristly locks were seen standing out round 
 about it. The bishop provided a lodging for the 
 youth near his own house, and on a certain day 
 called him before him, and making the sign of the
 
 26 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 cross on the dumb boy's tongue said, * Pronounce 
 some word ; say "Gse"' (Yea). The boy immediately 
 said what he was ordered. The bishop then added 
 the names of letters * Say A,' he said * A' ; ' say B,' 
 and he said this also. And when he had said after the 
 bishop the names of the letters, the latter proceeded 
 to put syllables and words for him to say. And 
 when he had repeated all these properly, he desired 
 him to say whole sentences, and he did so, and 
 went on talking the whole of that day and part of 
 the night, so that he was completely cured. 
 
 Now we may assume that Bede, as is often the 
 case with narrators of miracles, compressed into one 
 act what was really a work of time. But we see 
 that the process was neither more nor less than an 
 ingenious and rational system of education in speech, 
 devised by the natural acuteness of the bishop, and 
 aided by the power of sympathy or personal mag- 
 netism which that wonder-working saint must 
 undoubtedly have possessed. For a case of 
 functional aphasia (as this apparently was, for the 
 boy was not a deaf-mute) nothing could have been 
 better. 
 
 The bishop then ordered a physician to pay atten- 
 tion to the scabbiness of the boy's head (probably 
 due to ringworm or favus). He did as he was 
 ordered, and, aided by the bishop's benediction and 
 prayers, with complete success. * The youth became 
 of a clear countenance, ready in speech, and with 
 hair beautifully wavy.' 
 
 Thus while the humble leech played his part, the
 
 DEATH OF SAINT ^EDILTHRYD 27 
 
 whole glory of the achievement is given to the great 
 worker of miracles, St. John of Beverley. 
 
 With this delightful story ends all that we can 
 say about the state of English medicine in the age 
 of Bede. And it is to be observed, moreover, that 
 Bede belonged to the race of the Angles, and the 
 stories he tells refer to the Anglian kingdoms of 
 Northumbria and East Anglia. It is quite possible 
 that the Angles possessed some medical literature 
 written in Latin, but if so, it must have utterly 
 perished in the storm of the Danish invasions. 
 Many of the religious houses possessed valuable 
 libraries. That of Wearmouth, founded by Benedict 
 Biscop, was specially celebrated, but was completely 
 destroyed by the Danes. The library of the church 
 of York was so rich that the English scholar 
 Alcuin, when living at Tours under the patronage 
 of Charlemagne, felt severely the want of the in- 
 valuable books which he had studied there, and 
 wished to have some of them copied for the use of 
 his French students. Alcuin enumerates some of 
 the more important authors included in it, but I do 
 not find any mention of medical works. 
 
 The great abbeys of Peterborough, Croyland, and 
 others in East Anglia which were burnt by the 
 Danes at the end of the ninth century must also have 
 possessed fine libraries. Moreover, that medical 
 books existed in England in the eighth century is 
 shown by letters from correspondents in England to 
 Boniface, ' the Apostle of the Germans,' while that 
 adventurous missionary was on the continent. The
 
 28 LECTURE I: PART II 
 
 correspondent hopes to be remembered if Boniface 
 should acquire any books on secular science, such as 
 medicine, unknown at home : where he says, it is 
 true, ' we have some medical books, but the foreign 
 ingredients (drugs) which we find prescribed in them 
 are unknown to us, and difficult to obtain V It is 
 easy to see that this might be the case with medical 
 books of the Galenic school, treating of simples and 
 drugs belonging to Southern Europe, and of com- 
 pound medicines which the Saxons did not know 
 how to make. The request shows that the Saxons 
 possessed some medical books and were keenly 
 desirous of obtaining more. Imperfect catalogues of 
 some of the Anglo-Saxon libraries have survived, 
 but we cannot trace in them the titles of any 
 medical books properly so called, though the name 
 of Isidore of Seville, author of a sort of cyclopaedia 
 popular in the early Middle Ages, called Etymologiae*, 
 not unfrequently occurs. 
 
 After the close of Bede's History we have no 
 materials for medical history till we come to the 
 rise of Anglo-Saxon medical literature in the tenth 
 century, an interval of nearly 200 years. And in 
 crossing this interval of time we make a geographical 
 transition also, for we pass from the Anglian king- 
 doms to the kingdom of the West Saxons, that 
 
 1 Bonifac. Epistolae, p. 102 ; quoted in T. "Wright's Biographia 
 Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period, 1842, p. 95. 
 
 2 An account of some of the early Anglo-Saxon libraries may 
 be found in Bibliomania in the Middle Ages, by F. S. Merry- 
 weather, London, 1849 ; a little known but interesting work.
 
 DEATH OF SAINT ^EDILTHRYD 29 
 
 realm of Wessex which was made illustrious by 
 Alfred, and which fell with Harold on the field 
 of Hastings. The medical literature which we 
 have now to consider, though we may call it in 
 general terms Anglo-Saxon, was distinctly Saxon, 
 and its origin is closely associated with the reign and 
 the literary school of Alfred the Great. 
 
 PAKT III 
 
 THE ANGLO-SAXON MEDICAL LITERATURE 
 
 The English medical literature of the Anglo- 
 Saxon period, covering a space of more than two 
 centuries, is so striking a phenomenon in the 
 history of medicine, and has been so much neglected 
 by medical historians, that it seems a patriotic 
 duty, as well as an obligation to historical truth, 
 to give such an account of it as our limits permit. 
 
 This cannot be done without some reference 
 to Anglo-Saxon literature as a whole ; of which 
 I am totally incompetent to speak, except as a 
 reporter of the opinions of others. But it is well 
 known that our branch of the Germanic stock was 
 the first to produce a true national literature. The 
 Anglo-Saxons possessed a body of written language, 
 cultivated in form, rich and comprehensive in 
 contents : comprising poetry, legend, history, 
 religion, and science, at a time when their con- 
 tinental kinsmen could show nothing better than 
 the traditional songs and legends of a rude people,
 
 30 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 preserved by oral recitation ; or for written litera- 
 ture only some isolated translations of sacred books 
 into the vernacular. What learned books the con- 
 tinental nations had were written in Latin. The 
 Anglo-Saxons also produced a considerable Latin 
 literature ; but their vernacular literature was 
 something beyond and outside this, to which the 
 continental nations could not at that time show any 
 parallel. Their literary successes were no doubt 
 due in great part to national traditions and inborn 
 literary skill ; but they were also largely influenced 
 and stimulated by the example of foreign, that 
 is, classical literature. When the study of Greek 
 and Latin was introduced by Theodore of Canter- 
 bury and his allies, their native pupils embraced, 
 with remarkable intelligence and zeal, the learn- 
 ing thus presented to them. In the words of 
 Mr. Wright 
 
 'The Anglo-Saxons approached the intellectual 
 field which was thus opened to them with extra- 
 ordinary avidity. They were like the adventurous 
 traveller who has just landed on a newly discovered 
 shore : the very obstacles which at first stood in 
 their way seemed to have been placed there only 
 to stimulate their zeal. They thus soon gained 
 a march in advance even of their teachers ; and 
 the same age in which learning had been introduced 
 among them saw it reflected back with double lustre 
 on those who had sent it. At the beginning of the 
 eighth century England possessed a number of 
 scholars who would have been the just pride of the 
 most enlightened age ; and not only teachers, but 
 books also, were sent over to the Franks and 
 Germans. The science which they planted there
 
 A.-S. MEDICAL LITERATURE 31 
 
 continued to nourish long after it had faded at 
 home 1 . 
 
 Alcuin, indeed, helped to found schools in the 
 empire of Charles the Great, which were superior 
 to anything in his native England ; and which 
 flourished when learning in England was almost 
 crushed out by the northern invaders. 
 
 It is this old English literature, refined by 
 classical studies, that has been and is the object of 
 so much interest and such keen study on the part 
 of continental and especially German scholars. To 
 their labours we owe a great deal of the light 
 which has been thrown on it during the past 
 generation. It almost seems, indeed, as if they 
 appreciated the importance and beauty of our old 
 literature more than we do ourselves. 
 
 There are two qualities displayed by the Anglo- 
 Saxon literature which should be especially noticed. 
 First, vivacity and energy of mind ; secondly, great 
 readiness to learn from foreign or ancient sources of 
 knowledge. Our ancestors were hospitable to ideas 
 as well as to men. 
 
 The surviving Anglo-Saxon literature is no doubt 
 but a fragment of what once existed. Just as a few 
 small jaw-bones in the Oxford Museum are evidence 
 of the existence of a mammalian Fauna in the 
 Oolites, so the comparatively few documents in 
 Early English which have survived the destruction 
 and neglect of centuries represent a wide and 
 
 1 Thomas Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo- 
 Saxon Period, 1842, p. 32.
 
 32 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 varied literature, great part of which has perished. 
 Some of the most important and precious works are 
 extant only in a single MS., and chance rather than 
 intention has decided which should survive and 
 which be lost. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon libraries in the eighth century 
 were, as has been said, very rich. That of York, 
 spoken of by Alcuin, was especially celebrated. 
 Had this and other great libraries been spared, we 
 might now be in possession, possibly, of some 
 Anglo-Saxon medical books written in Latin, if not 
 indeed of some others written in English 1 . But 
 since the great church at York, and indeed most of 
 the churches and monasteries throughout England, 
 were at one time or another pillaged and burnt by 
 the heathen invaders, the greater part of their 
 literary treasures, Latin or English, must have been 
 destroyed, so that in the time of Alfred there was 
 a great dearth of books on all subjects. 
 
 When we look more closely at the medical books 
 of the Anglo-Saxons we find them to possess the 
 same qualities, and to occupy the same relative 
 position compared with other contemporary litera- 
 tures, as did the Anglo-Saxon pure literature. 
 
 In the first place they are written in the 
 vernacular tongue, and thus unique in Europe at 
 their time. This is a very remarkable fact. The 
 more I think about it, the more remarkable does it 
 seem. The reason given by Alfred the Great for 
 having Latin books translated into English was the 
 
 1 Wright, op. cit., p. 27.
 
 A.-S. MEDICAL LITERATURE 33 
 
 ignorance of Latin in his time among the clergy ; 
 but long after that defect was remedied, the use 
 of English books prevailed. He was also influenced 
 by his affection for the old English literature, which 
 he loved to hear read or recited. The same reasons 
 may have applied in the case of the medical books. 
 They were intended for a class of persons (not 
 necessarily clerical), in many cases, imperfectly 
 acquainted with Latin. The remarkable thing is 
 that there should have been men, able and will- 
 ing to read books, who were not Latin scholars. 
 Now it is clear that a vernacular literature will 
 be much more national than one in a learned 
 language, which is the apanage of a class, and 
 must be far more intellectually stimulating to the 
 nation. In no other European country was there, at 
 that time or for centuries after, any scientific litera- 
 ture written in the vernacular, or at that time any 
 new scientific literature at all, even in Latin. 
 This is a proof that the Anglo-Saxons possessed 
 high intelligence and activity of mind ; though not 
 necessarily that they possessed deep learning. It was 
 not till long after this that any serious and learned 
 medical literature, as distinguished from popular 
 medicine, was written in English. The other 
 quality which we find in the medical as in the pure 
 literature, and which seems characteristic of the 
 Anglo-Saxon mind, is that readiness to learn from 
 all sources, that hospitality to ideas, of which I have 
 already spoken. 
 
 Furthermore the medical, like the other litera-
 
 34 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 ture, is a mere fragment of what must have once 
 existed. There are no English medical writings 
 extant which date from before the time of Alfred. 
 If there were any such earlier books, they would 
 probably have been written in Latin ; but whether 
 Latin or English they must have perished in the 
 terrible destructions of the eighth and ninth 
 centuries. There is one book, a sort of manual for 
 a doctor's use, of which I shall speak presently, the 
 only surviving work of its class, which seems to 
 imply the existence of others of the same kind. 
 Had the single MS. which remains of this work 
 been destroyed, we should not know what an Anglo- 
 Saxon professional manual was like. 
 
 We must now consider in detail what the Anglo- 
 Saxon medical library, so far as it has been 
 preserved, consists of. The total number of exist- 
 ing medical MSS. would not much exceed a score. 
 Most are in the British Museum, some at 
 Oxford and Cambridge. All the important ones 
 have been printed and translated into modern 
 English, and probably little remains to be dis- 
 covered. Eminent Anglo-Saxon scholars whom I 
 have consulted say they do not know of any other 
 medical documents and would be at a loss where to 
 look for them. 
 
 Those which we have are contained in three 
 volumes printed forty years ago in the Chronicles 
 and Memorials of Great Britain, published under the 
 direction of the Master of the Kolls. Very for- 
 tunately for those who like myself are totally
 
 A.-S. MEDICAL LITERATURE 35 
 
 ignorant of the Old English called Anglo-Saxon, and 
 to whom, therefore, the original MSS. in their clear 
 and beautiful handwriting would be sealed books, 
 they are translated into modern English. 
 The title is :- 
 
 'LEECHDOMS, WORT-CUNNING AND STARCRAFT OF 
 EARLY ENGLAND, being a collection of Documents, 
 for the most part never before printed, illustrating 
 the History of Science in this country before the 
 Norman Conquest. Collected and Edited by the 
 Kev. Oswald Cockayne. Three volumes 8vo, London 
 1864-6.' 
 
 This collection included all the Anglo - Saxon 
 medical books which the editor could find ; and 
 nothing material has been added in the forty years 
 which have elapsed since it was published. Two of 
 the treatises have been re-edited, with corrections 
 and valuable elucidations by German philologists, 
 and Anglo-Saxon medicine is mentioned by German 
 medical historians. But in our own country the 
 apathy of the medical profession with regard to 
 such subjects remains undisturbed, and the earliest 
 memorials of English medicine seem to awaken no 
 interest whatever. Hence it is not surprising that 
 the very great services rendered by the learned 
 editor, Mr. Cockayne, some forty years ago, to 
 medical history have never been properly appre- 
 ciated l . 
 
 1 It would be wrong to pass over Dr. Withington's excellent 
 Medical History from the Earliest Times, where Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine is referred to ; but the notice is necessarily very brief. 
 
 Some notices of Anglo-Saxon medicine are also contained in 
 Mr. T. Wright's Bioyraphia Britannica Literaria (Anglo-Saxon
 
 36 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 The medical works contained in Cockayne's 
 edition (omitting some which are not strictly 
 medical) may be arranged thus : 
 
 1. Leech Book, in two books. As this book was 
 the property of one Bald, I call it the Leech Book 
 of Bald. It is believed to have been written 
 between A.D. 900 and 950. 
 
 2. What is called Book III of the Leech Book 
 is evidently not a part of it, but a shorter work 
 something like the other. It was written appa- 
 rently in the same period. This and the former are 
 from a MS. in the British Museum (Keg. 12 D, 
 xvii). Cockayne, vol. ii. 
 
 3. An Anglo-Saxon translation of the Late Latin 
 work called Herbarium Apuleii Platonici. With 
 this are associated three or four other short 
 treatises, which will be described presently. The 
 text in Cockayne is printed chiefly from an illus- 
 trated British Museum MS. (Cotton, ViteUius cm) ; 
 but there are other MSS. The supposed date is 
 1000-1050. Cockayne, vol. i, pp. 1-373. 
 
 4. Lacnunga, or Kecipes, a collection of miscella- 
 neous prescriptions from a MS- regarded as later than 
 that last mentioned (Brit. Mus. MS., Harleian 585). 
 
 5. Peri Didaxeon, or ' Of Schools of Medicine, 5 
 a treatise which has been shown by Dr. Max 
 Loweneck to be partly founded on the Latin work 
 of Petrocellus, a teacher of the school of Salerno, 
 and which at all events reflects the teaching of that 
 school in its first period, before it was influenced 
 by Arabian medicine. It is of a later date, written 
 about the middle of the twelfth century (Brit. 
 Mus. MS., Harleian 6258). Cockayne, vol. iii, 
 pp. 81-145. 
 
 Period], and in Professor Earle's work on English Plant-names, 
 in various editions of the works of Bede, in Haeser's Gcschichte 
 der Medizin.
 
 A.-S. MEDICAL LITERATURE 37 
 
 6. Collections of medical charms are given in 
 vol. i, pp. 374-95, and vol. iii, pp. 285-95. 
 
 7. A glossary of the names of plants (A.-S. 
 and Latin) from the Durham Cathedral Library. 
 Vol. iii, pp. 297-305. 
 
 The other contents of the volumes referring to 
 dreams, the ecclesiastical calendar, astronomy, &c., 
 need not be mentioned. 
 
 I said before, that in coming to the Anglo-Saxon 
 medical literature we were passing over to the 
 kingdom of the West Saxons and to the reign of 
 Alfred the Great. These statements require some 
 explanation. Among the books in Mr. Cockayne's 
 collection, the most important, without doubt, is the 
 treatise on medicine, or Leech Book of Bald. This 
 work contains allusions to Alfred which show that 
 it was written in that king's lifetime or shortly after 
 his death, and by some one who had access to the 
 royal archives or correspondence ; so that the con- 
 nexion is obvious. In the case of the translation of 
 the Herbarium of Apuleius the connexion with 
 Alfred is less direct, but nevertheless important. 
 
 We know that one of the objects aimed at in 
 Alfred's educational schemes was to have valuable 
 books of all kinds translated into English. He 
 himself translated the historical works of Orosius 
 and Bede, and Boethius On the Consolation of 
 Philosophy, the last word of the ancient schools of 
 thought; and caused other translations to be written, 
 thus making his time what Mr. Wright calls 'the 
 age of translations/ The school of Alfred was
 
 38 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 carried on in the next century by jElfric of Can- 
 terbury, called the Grammarian, who brought out 
 the Homilies in English, and who also, it is said, 
 translated a manual of astronomy; as well as by 
 other writers. It is to this time and this school 
 that we must refer the version of Apuleius. Though 
 not strictly belonging to the age of Alfred, it was a 
 continuation of the noble project of that great king, 
 to put into the hands of his people the best books of 
 all kinds, written in their native tongue. With 
 regard to some other books of the collection, it is not 
 quite clear when they were written or in what part 
 of the country. But that the early English medical 
 as well as the general literature went on growing 
 for two and a half centuries after Alfred's death 
 shows that it met a national want. 
 
 Before speaking in detail of the old English 
 medical books, I will venture to say a word about 
 the spirit in which they should be studied. Too 
 often, those few persons who have interested them- 
 selves in these monuments of ancient science have 
 treated them in one of two ways. Either they have 
 picked out something especially unlike the ways of 
 modern thought, and held it up to scorn as showing 
 the folly of our ancestors, or else in kinder mood 
 they have condescended to be amused, and calling any- 
 thing old and unfamiliar 'quaint,' dismissed it with 
 a smile. Neither of these methods will help us to 
 understand the ancient world. The folly of our 
 ancestors is no explanation. Their knowledge was 
 no doubt extremely limited ; they saw old and dis-
 
 A.-S. MEDICAL LITERATURE 39 
 
 tant things through a dense and prevailing fog of 
 ignorance. But that they tried to understand them 
 at all is a proof of their wisdom, not of their folly. 
 
 Still more misleading is the habit of regarding 
 the rude features of primitive art, the stammering 
 words of an infant literature, the childish fallacies 
 of early science, as something to be amused at. 
 Till we have got beyond the stage of calling these 
 old things merely ' quaint,' there is no possibility of 
 understanding them at all. Therefore, if we quote 
 from the old books things which appear strange in 
 our eyes, foolish things if you like, it is not with the 
 object of raising a laugh or of flattering the modern 
 sense of superiority. The only way to understand 
 these old writers is to try to put ourselves as far 
 as possible in their place, and conceive how nature 
 and science presented themselves to the eyes of the 
 early teachers and learners in the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries. 
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 
 
 This, the most important memorial of Anglo- 
 Saxon medicine which has survived, is a definite 
 and completed treatise, occupying 109 leaves of the 
 MS., and 299 pages in the printed edition. It is 
 divided into two books, the first containing eighty- 
 eight, the second sixty-seven chapters. Each book 
 has a full table of contents or headings of chapters. 
 The first chapter begins with leechdoms against 
 affections of the head, and then proceeds downwards 
 a capite ad pedes, after the method of the later Greek
 
 40 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 physicians, first introduced, I think, by Alexander 
 Trallianus, who lived in the sixth century after 
 Christ, and closely followed in the Middle Ages. 
 Thus we have in succession in the first thirty 
 chapters, the eyes, the ears, the throat, parts of 
 the face, the teeth, affections of the chest, including 
 cough ; the heart, stomach, loins, thighs, legs, and 
 lastly the feet ; the thirtieth chapter treating of 
 chilblains on the feet. But after this no regular 
 order is preserved, the remaining chapters contain- 
 ing prescriptions for a great variety of diseases, such 
 as tumours, skin affections, paralysis, fevers, bites of 
 snakes, and so on. 
 
 The second book is concerned chiefly with 
 internal and abdominal diseases ; stomach, liver, 
 and spleen, with some miscellaneous prescriptions, 
 and differs a good deal from the first book. It is 
 more learned, including some recognition of signs 
 of disease and attempts at diagnosis, and contains, 
 as we shall see, many passages which may be traced 
 to Greek and Latin medical writers. 
 
 At the end of the second book we find the follow- 
 ing verses : 
 
 ' Bald habet hunc librum, Cild quern con- 
 
 scribere iussit. 
 
 Hie precor assidue cunctis in nomine Christi 
 Quod nullus tollat hunc librum perfidus a me 
 Nee vi, nee furto, nee quodam famine l falso. 
 Cur? quia nulla mini tarn cara est optima 
 
 gaza, 
 Quam cari libri quos Christi gratia comit.' 
 
 1 Famen (Low-Latin) = oratio, verbum.
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 41 
 
 'Bald is the owner of this book, which he 
 
 ordered Gild to write. 
 Earnestly I pray here all men, in the name 
 
 of Christ, 
 That no treacherous person take this book 
 
 from me, 
 Neither by force, nor by theft, nor by any 
 
 false statement. 
 Why? because the richest treasure is not so 
 
 dear to me 
 As my dear books, which the grace of Christ 
 
 attends.' 
 
 The form and language of Bald's hexameters 
 may be open to criticism, but their sentiment is 
 admirable. They show clearly that it was not 
 because Bald could not read Latin that he wanted 
 a book written in English. 
 
 It would seem from this that Bald was a leech 
 who wanted this book for his own use. Whether 
 Cild was merely the scribe, or the compiler of the 
 work, is not quite clear : from the conscnbere I should 
 be inclined to think the latter, and also because the 
 MS. has some strange marks on the margin, which, 
 according to Mr. Cockayne, seem to point to the 
 sources from which certain portions of the book 
 were taken. Whether Bald and Cild were clerical 
 persons is not stated ; but most probably one or 
 both were monks, since books were hardly written 
 except in monasteries. 
 
 The MS. is believed to have been written in 
 the first half of the tenth century, that is, soon 
 after the death of Alfred. The book itself must 
 have been composed at an earlier date ; for the fact
 
 42 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 that the scribe has tacked on Book III, which was 
 really nothing to do with Bald's Leech Book, seems 
 to show that this was at all events not the original 
 MS., and must have been copied from some 
 older source. Sufficient time had elapsed for some 
 confusion to creep in. At all events the book is 
 referred to soon after the era of Alfred. 
 
 This appears then to have been the textbook of 
 a practising doctor ; and the writer, who must also 
 have been a doctor, refers to two other leeches by 
 name, Dun and Oxa, so that the existence of a 
 class of professional leeches is clearly established. 
 Whether all were clerical persons it is impossible 
 to say. 
 
 The book is in the main therapeutical, consisting 
 of prescriptions or formulae for a large number of 
 diseases, with scanty references to their symptoms 
 and pathology. There is nothing like any general 
 introduction or statement of principles, whether of 
 pathology or treatment. 
 
 The maladies prescribed for are in part diseases 
 with definite names, Greek, Latin, or English ; in 
 part groups of affections, such as affections of the 
 head, of the eye, of the abdomen, &c. ; and again in 
 part symptoms, such as headache, cough, &c. 
 
 It would be impossible to enumerate the diseases 
 named. They are such as head affections, 'half- 
 head's ache ' (hemicrania), eye and ear affections, sore 
 throat, hare-lip, bringing up blood, ' host ' or cough 
 (still extant as a provincial word), * circle-adle,' i. e. 
 shingles ; ' black and deadened body,' i. e. gangrene ;
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 43 
 
 contraction of sinews, broken leg, &c. There are 
 names also for a ' rough ' disease of the skin, for 
 a ' spring disease,' and for many other maladies. 
 
 In the second book is a rather long account of 
 half-dead disease, that is hemiplegia. Fever-adle, 
 that is, fevers, are mentioned, among which are 
 distinguished tertian, quartan, quotidian. There is 
 also lent-adle, or spring disease, which must refer 
 to spring agues or tertians. TJieor-adle is trans- 
 lated 'dry disease' by the editor, but this is 
 improbable (the true meaning is discussed on 
 p. 48, note). ' Poccas,' or Poc-adk, is very defi- 
 nitely mentioned, and must mean small-pox, since 
 in some charms found elsewhere the word ' Poccas ' 
 is taken as equivalent to 'Variola.' This is im- 
 portant, since the early use of the word ' pox ' in 
 this sense has been doubted. But probably the 
 Saxons did not draw the line between this and 
 measles. Pestilence is referred to, and not being 
 the same as small-pox probably meant the bubonic 
 plague. The word translated 'flying venom/ or 
 in modern language 'air-borne contagion,' seems 
 to refer to epidemic diseases generally. In one 
 place this is associated with the expression 'veno- 
 mous swelling,' which may refer to buboes (A.-S. L. 
 ii. 113), and confirms the conclusion that bubonic 
 plague was definitely known. A word meaning 
 ' rough disease ' is translated by Mr. Cockayne 
 ' leprosy ' ; but I think it is not certain that 
 this disease was meant. It was more likely the 
 lepra of the Greeks, that is psoriasis and other
 
 44 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 rough skin affections. The name * mickle body,' i. e. 
 enlargement of the body, seems to mean elephan- 
 tiasis in the modern sense. 
 
 Besides snakes and other venomous creatures, 
 various kinds of worms are mentioned, and remedies 
 prescribed for them. It is not always easy to say 
 what species are meant, especially as the word 
 ' worm ' was applied to all kinds of lower creatures, 
 including insects. Thus we have ' hand worms,' 
 ' deaw worms 1 ,' 'worms which ail men within,' ' the 
 small worm,' ' worms which eat a man's flesh,' * the 
 boring worm,' and so on ; also leechdoms ' for a 
 worm-eaten body.' 
 
 The hand worm would seem to be the itch mite 
 (Acarus scabiei)\ and some of the remedies are 
 appropriate for this. 
 
 The following are some of the leechdoms (slightly 
 altered in order) : 
 
 'i. For hand worms and "deaw worms": take 
 dock or clote, such as would swim, mingle the roots 
 with cream and with salt, let it stand for three 
 nights, and on the fourth day smear therewith the 
 sore places. 
 
 1 2. If a worm eat the hand : take marsh maregall, 
 red nettle, red dock, and the small bur, boil in cows' 
 butter ; when the salve is sodden, then further take 
 of salt three parts, shed thereupon, shake together 
 
 1 Dr. Bradley says ' deaw-wyrm should not be rendered " dew 
 worm." As deag-wyrmede glosses podagricus, the daw-wyrm 
 must have been something affecting the feet, as indeed the 
 allusion on next page shows.' I should therefore conclude that 
 it means the Acarus affecting the feet, and might be rendered 
 ' foot worm/
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 45 
 
 and smear therewith ; lather with soap, about night- 
 time smear therewith. 
 
 ' Against a hand worm, take ship tar, and sulphur, 
 and pepper and white salt, mingle them together, 
 smear therewith. 
 
 'Against a deaw worm, let the man step upon 
 a hot coal ; let him cool (his foot) with water, let 
 him step upon it, as hot as he hottest may. 
 
 * For a deaw worm, some take warm thin ordure 
 of man ; they bind it on for the space of a night. 
 Some take a swine's lung warm ' (A.-S. L. ii. 123). 
 
 The fact that in paragraph (i) the same remedy is 
 prescribed for hand worms and ' deaw worms ' con- 
 firms the conclusion that this word means the itch 
 mite affecting the foot. 
 
 The remedies for pediculi are curious : 
 
 ' Against lice ; pound in ale oak rind and a little 
 wormwood, give (the patient) to drink. 
 
 ' Against lice ; quicksilver and old butter, one 
 pennyweight of quicksilver and two of butter ; min- 
 gle all together in a brazen vessel ' (A.-S. L. ii. 125). 
 
 Another kind of worm is called by the curious 
 name * Ana worm.' Mr. Cockayne explains this as 
 referring to a certain King of Sweden named On, 
 who gave his name to a sort of illness : but the 
 argument does not seem to me conclusive 1 . 
 
 From the account it is clear that some worm is 
 meant which lives under the skin, like the guinea- 
 worm or dracunculus, which was known in the 
 East though not in England. If the worm was 
 English it could only refer to bots or maggots of 
 bot-flies and breeze-flies, which infest horses and 
 
 1 A.-S. L. ii. 115, and Glossary, 369.
 
 46 LECTURE 1: PART III 
 
 cattle. They rarely attack man ; though perhaps, 
 in ruder conditions of bucolic life, such instances 
 would be commoner. The treatment by powdered 
 glass I have not met with elsewhere. 
 
 1 If the ana worm grow in a man smear with the 
 black salve. If the worm eat through to the out- 
 side and make a hole, take a drop of honey, drop it 
 on the hole, then have broken glass ready ground, 
 shed it on the hole ; then as soon as the worm tastes 
 of this he will die. A salve against the ana worm 
 thus shall one work : take cinquefoil, that is five 
 leaf, and rue, boil them in butter, sweeten with 
 honey. 
 
 1 A drink for the same. Rub down into ale or 
 into wine seeds of radish and of colewort, let the 
 man drink it long and often against the ana worm 
 till he be bettered.' 
 
 We observe also remedies for a ' fiendsick ' man, 
 that is a demoniac, and for a lunatic, and for the 
 ' wode heart ' or frenzy, and for ' mindlessness ' 
 (or idiocy) and folly. Also medicines are provided 
 against the tricks of elves, and malicious ' rune-lays ' 
 or heathen charms ; and if a man be ' mare-ridden,' 
 i.e. hag-ridden or has nightmare, and if horses or 
 cattle be bewitched (p. 291). 
 
 The remedies prescribed against these maladies 
 are various. For the most part they are herbal 
 medicines, a large number of herbs being often 
 united in one prescription ; though not more than 
 in many prescriptions of later times up to the 
 seventeenth century. Thus : 
 
 ' For a light drink. Take elfthon, githrife, betony, 
 the clove-wenwort, everthroat, horseheal, lupins ; two
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 47 
 
 parts of helenium, clote, waybroad, ontre, cropleech. 
 For liquid let half be holy water, half clear ale.' 
 
 It would be difficult to identify all these worts, 
 but they are certainly English. 
 
 1 A quieting drink. Betony, helenium, wormwood, 
 ontre, horehound, lupin, wen-wort, yarrow, dwarf 
 dwbstle, attorlothe, fieldmore (wild carrot)/ 
 
 These prescriptions, in which native or garden 
 herbs only are prescribed, may be considered as 
 invented by the Anglo-Saxon leech himself. The 
 formulae which have definite names of authors 
 attached to them, viz. ' Dun ' and ' Oxa,' are of this 
 kind (pp. 121, 293). In one of these oakum or tow 
 is mentioned. 
 
 Herbs were also worked into ointments, usually 
 made with butter ; e. g. 
 
 ' A wound salve. Githrife and silverweed and the 
 broad-leaved brown wort which waxeth in woods, 
 and a bunch of the flowers of lustmoce (supposed 
 by Cockayne to be lady-smock) ; pound all these and 
 boil first in a half proportion of butter and wring 
 through a cloth 5 (ii. 93). 
 
 A more elaborate way of using the herbs was in 
 a bath, or even in a vapour bath ; as in the 
 following : 
 
 1 A bath for Blcece. Boil the worts ten times in 
 a basin and separately ; betony, neptan (nepeta), 
 marrubium, agrimony, yarrow, mint, horseheal, 
 hind-heal, churmel, earthgall, dill, marche, fennel, 
 of all equally much. Make then a stool of three 
 pieces of wood, with a hole below. Sit over a 
 bucket and cover thee over from above with 
 a garment lest the vapour escape ; pour (the hot 
 liquor) under the stool into the bucket ; let it reek
 
 48 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 on thee. So mayst thou do thrice with the worts ; 
 and underneath stir with a stick if thou wilt have 
 it hotter ' (ii. 77). 
 
 Blsece, as appears from glossaries, meant some white 
 affection of the skin, i. e. Vitiligo or Leucoderma. 
 
 As a specimen of an Anglo-Saxon prescription 
 take the following, which is good for "Theor 
 disease l ' : 
 
 1 Oxa taught this leechdom ; take wallwort, and 
 doffing and kneeholn and everlasting, and cammock, 
 and tunsing-wort, nine parts, brown(wort), bishop- 
 wort, and attorlothe and red nettle, and red hove, 
 and wormwood and yarrow, and horehound, pellitory, 
 and pennyroyal ; put all these worts into Welsh or 
 foreign ale ; and let him then drink it nine days, 
 and be let blood.' 
 
 For the 'Theor pain,' 'work into a drink 
 alexanders, houseleek, wormwood, the two knee- 
 holns, sage, savine, carrot, lovage, feverfew, marche, 
 costmary, garlic, ash-throat, betony, bishop- wort ; 
 work them up into double brewed ale, sweeten with 
 honey. Let him drink for nine mornings no other 
 liquid, drink afterwards a strong portion, and be let 
 blood 2 .' 
 
 Here each of the potions contains fifteen or 
 sixteen worts, and there are still other receipts for 
 the same disease, so the leech Oxa had abundant 
 resources. 
 
 1 The word is theor adl, in plural theor adlum, translated by 
 Mr. Cockayne ' dry disease,' but this explanation is not accepted 
 by modern scholars. Dr. Bradley says that it was some inflamed 
 swelling, and when occurring in the eye it is identified with 
 ' fig.' I therefore leave the word in text untranslated. 
 
 2 A.-S. L. ii. 121.
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 49 
 
 With regard to the way in which the Anglo- 
 Saxons used their drugs, it should be said that they 
 employed almost exclusively simples, that is, the 
 original herbs in infusions or powders which, though 
 containing often a great number of herbs, are un- 
 complicated and very different from the formulae 
 of Galen and from the elaborate confections or 
 electuaries, that is, compound medicines, afterwards 
 introduced by the school of Salerno, partly from 
 Arabian sources. This shows that the art of 
 pharmacy was in a very low state. Herbs were 
 used as watery infusions and decoctions, or made 
 up with ale, vinegar, and milk in draughts, or as 
 confections made with honey ; or mixed with butter 
 as ointments. 
 
 They were also used as plasters or poultices, and, 
 according to one prescription, in a vapour bath. 
 
 Prescriptions like these and many others must 
 be regarded as founded on an empirical knowledge 
 of the virtues of herbs, and as representing a 
 popular herbal medicine. That such a medical art 
 existed seems clear; and I shall afterwards bring 
 forward some facts to show that the knowledge 
 of herbs among the Anglo-Saxons was very 
 considerable. 
 
 But there is a large element in this Leech Book 
 of a very different character and having quite 
 another origin. This is found mostly in Book II, 
 which deals with internal diseases. In this book 
 are many passages, especially those relating to 
 symptoms and pathology, which convey the 
 
 PAYNE H
 
 50 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 doctrines of late Greek and Latin medical writers ; 
 in some places making a near approximation to 
 their words. 
 
 Before discussing the actual sources of this more 
 learned part of the Leech Book, it may be well to 
 quote a concrete example of the passages which 
 show the influence of the Greek or Latin writers in 
 the deeper and more thorough manner in which the 
 subject is treated, and one instance fully quoted 
 will be more instructive than numerous short 
 quotations. 
 
 As an example, then, of the more elaborate descrip- 
 tion of a certain disease, I will quote the account of 
 ' sore in the side,' or pleurisy. 
 
 ' Here are leechdoms for sore of either side, and 
 tokens how the disease approaches, and how a man 
 may understand it, and how a man shall treat it. 
 These leechdoms shall be done for sore of side, and 
 these are the tokens of the disease, like unto the 
 tokens of lung disease and the tokens of liver-pain. 
 
 ' The men suffer with strong fevers and much 
 soreness on both sides. At whiles the sore striketh 
 upon the ribs, at whiles it is over all the side, at 
 whiles it cometh on the collar-bones, or after a little 
 on the shoulders or the lower belly. They cough fre- 
 quently ; at whiles they bring up blood ; they suffer 
 constant wakefulness ; the tongue is dry ; they 
 cannot lie on the left side if the sore is on the right, 
 nor on the right if the sore is on the left. . . . 
 
 ' There is also cold of the fingers and weakness of 
 the knees, their eyes and their hue are red, their 
 discharge (expectoration) is foamy, their urine yellow, 
 the inward digestion little, and there is pulsation 
 of the veins. The breathing is painful, the face 
 twitched ; there is dewy wet on the breast, like
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 51 
 
 sweat ; roughness of the throat from within, whis- 
 tling from the part where the sore is ; delirium of 
 the mind. If these tokens continue long, then the 
 disease is too dangerous, and one can do nothing for 
 the man. But ask the patient whether he were ever 
 struck or stabbed in the side, or had a fall, or had 
 a breakage. If it were so, he will be easier to cure. 
 If it is come of cold, or of inward evil humour, it is 
 so much the harder to cure' (A. -8. L. ii. 259). 
 
 About the first half of this description agrees to 
 a certain extent with Aretaeus (Morb. Acut. lib. i, 
 cap. 10), but can hardly have been directly copied 
 from that writer ; the differences are too great. It 
 is still less like the description in Alexander 
 Trallianus or that of Paulus Aegineta, who borrows 
 from Alexander. A good many points are common 
 to all the classical writers, from Hippocrates down- 
 wards. 
 
 But there are several ' tokens ' in the latter part 
 of the description which, whether accurate or not, 
 do not come from any of the writers named, nor, so 
 far as I can find out, from any ancient work known 
 to us. The Saxon writer also recognizes the occur- 
 rence of traumatic pleurisy, and the possibility of 
 confounding it with the idiopathic disease, which 
 the ancient writers do not. He mixes up (as did also 
 the ancients) some symptoms due to pneumonia or 
 bronchitis, such as expectoration, haemoptysis, 
 whistling rales. On the whole, both in its errors 
 and in its correct statements, the account seems to 
 show a compilation of ancient traditions mingled 
 with some direct observation ; and could hardly
 
 52 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 have been merely translated from any old book. 
 Mr. Cockayne suggests that it may have been copied 
 from Philagrius, but the extant fragments of that 
 writer do not contain such a passage. 
 
 The account of pleurisy goes on to mention other 
 tokens which are of bad omen, such as previous 
 affection of the liver or lungs ; but if the pain come 
 from the spleen it is less dangerous. There is danger 
 also when the expectoration * is of many a hue and 
 complexion.' This last phrase is a direct translation 
 from Alexander Trallianus. 
 
 The rules for diet are short, and contrast with the 
 copious directions given by the Greek physicians ; 
 from whom, indeed, the Saxon leech differs widely. 
 For instance, Alexander expressly forbids shell- 
 fish, but the Saxon recommends * periwinkles re- 
 moved from their shells.' This is taken from 
 Marcellus Empiricus, who recommends 'cocleae ' for 
 pain of the side. Eggs are also recommended, 
 and peas, with bread in hot water, and light food 
 generally. 
 
 In his directions for the treatment of pleurisy the 
 Saxon leech stands for the most part on ancient 
 ways, and agrees on the whole with Alexander 
 Trallianus. 
 
 He begins with a mild vegetable laxative, a ' wort 
 drink,' given by the mouth or as a clyster through 
 a horn. Then he prescribes local applications to the 
 painful spot a swine's bladder containing warm 
 fresh water and oil as a sort of poultice ; or a bladder 
 containing warm salt (dry) with bran ; a cerate with
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 53 
 
 horehound on cloth as a plaster; plasters or fomenta- 
 tions containing various herbs, as dill, rue, and laurel 
 leaves ; fomentations with soft wool and oil. Most 
 of these applications were well known to the Greek 
 physicians. 
 
 If these measures do not help, a cupping-glass 
 is applied on the shoulders ; in severe cases the 
 wounds are to be scarified and kept open for three 
 days. Of course there is venesection, but not 
 always at the beginning ; the blood to be drawn 
 from the arm on the opposite side to that affected. 
 By way of internal remedies, coriander seeds with 
 honey, and one nauseous remedy (borrowed from 
 Marcellus Empiricus), droppings of a wild boar, 
 collected in the woods, to be drunk with water. 
 Also stronger purges if necessary. 
 
 It would be impossible to quote at the same length 
 the accounts of other diseases. I will only say that 
 for ' lung disease,' which corresponds more to pul- 
 monary consumption than to pneumonia, there is 
 a copious collection of receipts, chiefly of herbal 
 remedies, some of them containing a formidable list 
 of ingredients. A large number of diseases affecting 
 the stomach are mentioned, and the remedies for 
 these are not less numerous. It is the same with 
 affections of the liver, and, what is strange, with 
 affections of the spleen, about which the old leeches 
 seem to have known much more than we know now. 
 
 The treatment of abscess of the liver culminates 
 in a surgical operation, of which more hereafter. 
 
 In these more learned parts of the Leech Book we
 
 54 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 clearly see that the writer had before him some im- 
 portant authorities, Latin or Greek; and the question 
 what authors were laid under contribution is a very 
 interesting one. 
 
 None of these writers are ever quoted by name, 
 except Plinius, meaning probably Plinius Valerianus. 
 There is hardly anything to suggest a knowledge of 
 the older classics, Hippocrates, Galen, or Aretaeus l . 
 But a good many passages have been detected by 
 Mr. Cockayne, which are evidently taken either in 
 substance or in words from one Greek physician, 
 Alexander of Tralles, who li ved in the sixth century. 
 There are also passages closely resembling corre- 
 sponding passages in the works of Paulus of Aegina 
 or Paulus Aegineta (seventh century), but much 
 fewer. Now Alexander was not exactly an original 
 writer, as much of his material was borrowed from 
 Galen and other Greek physicians, and Paulus copied 
 much from Alexander. A still earlier Greek writer, 
 Oribasius (fourth century), who copied Galen, seems 
 to have been the original of one passage, and one 
 was perhaps borrowed from Aetius (sixth century). 
 
 There are also passages borrowed, equally without 
 acknowledgement, from later Latin writers, such as 
 Plinius Valerianus, sometimes called Pseudo-Plinius, 
 not to be confounded with the great Roman natur- 
 alist Plinius. The name is once mentioned (vol. ii, 
 p. 155), but the quotation cannot be verified. Others 
 
 1 Mr. Cockayne detects allusions to Galen and Aretaeus in two 
 passages (A.-S. L. vol. ii, pp. 18 and 208), but it appears to 
 me that the resemblance is not close.
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 55 
 
 are Marcellus Empiricus, who lived about 400 A.D.; 
 Sextus Placitus, the writer of a very poor book about 
 medicines derived from animals, which we know 
 was translated into Anglo-Saxon ; Theodoras Pris- 
 cianus, and perhaps others. But all these writers 
 borrowed from their Greek predecessors ; and there- 
 fore the identification of passages as directly taken 
 from them is sometimes doubtful. 
 
 The materials drawn from the Greek would make, 
 Mr. Cockayne thinks, about one-fourth of the whole 
 book, but this seems to me to be a rather high 
 estimate. Most of the borrowed matter is from 
 Alexander, and there is no reason to think that the 
 Anglo-Saxon compilers went back further than that 
 writer. 
 
 Besides the above-named writers, no others can 
 be identified as the authorities of the Anglo-Saxon 
 compiler. I have tried to detect resemblances 
 between certain passages of the Leech Book and 
 corresponding parts of Celsus, Caelius Aurelianus, 
 and Cassius Felix, but without success. Moreover, 
 it is well to state that there is nothing in this 
 book which recalls any writer of the school of 
 Salerno. Indeed, the earliest surviving works of 
 that school (as printed in modern times) are 
 of later date than the tenth century. 
 
 Now with regard to the Greek writers, the inter- 
 esting question arises whether the Anglo-Saxon 
 compilers knew their works in the original or 
 through the medium of Latin translations. We 
 have seen that at an earlier period learned men in
 
 56 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 England had a considerable knowledge of Greek. 
 But before and at the time of Alfred learning had 
 so much declined that it is improbable there were 
 any real Greek scholars in England. That there 
 were men capable of translating from the Latin is 
 evident from the works of the king himself and of 
 those whom he employed in translations. 
 
 Moreover, it seems as if all that is traceable as of 
 p . . . 
 
 Greek origin might have been obtained from Latin 
 
 translations. The works of Alexander, according 
 to his latest editor, Dr. Puschmann, were translated 
 into Latin at least as early as the end of the ninth 
 or beginning of the tenth century (say 900 A.D.), 
 since a MS. of that date still exists in the library 
 of Monte Cassino. This is a little before the 
 date of our Leech Book, and probably there were 
 still earlier MSS. One point in favour of the 
 Anglo-Saxons having borrowed from Latin versions 
 is that they have included certain fragments of an 
 ancient Greek writer, Philagrios, which are em- 
 bedded in the text of Alexander. Now these 
 fragments, Dr. Puschmann says l , are found in the 
 Latin, but not in the Greek MSS. of Alexander's 
 works. Of course, Philagrios is not mentioned by 
 name, any more than Alexander, in the Saxon 
 version 2 . 
 
 1 Alexander von Tralles, edited by Dr. Theodor Puschmann, 
 Vienna, 1878, vol. i, pp. 91, 104. 
 
 2 Since, however, the Latin MSS. must have been translated 
 from a Greek original, we should naturally infer that some 
 Greek MSS. existed, containing these fragments of Philagrios. 
 And, in fact, these fragments are given in Greek in the edition
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 57 
 
 On the whole, then, we must conclude that there 
 is no necessity to suppose that the passages from 
 Alexander were taken from the original Greek text. 
 It is most probable, if not certain, that they came 
 from a Latin version. The amount apparently 
 borrowed from other Greek writers is so small 
 that the question hardly arises. 
 
 We see then that the dogmatic or literary part of 
 the Anglo-Saxon medicine was based upon a few 
 late Greek and Latin authors. What was the 
 general character of the materials on which they 
 built? 
 
 It must be confessed that the Anglo-Saxons, with 
 all their zeal for learning and respect for the 
 ancients, were very unfortunate in the time at 
 which they began to form their medical literature, 
 namely, the period from the ninth to the eleventh 
 century. It was the time when European medi- 
 cine stood at its very lowest level ; and if any 
 period deserved the name of the dark ages it was 
 this. The works of the classical Greek physicians 
 
 of Alexander Trallianus, in Greek and Latin, edited by Guinther 
 of Andernach (Guinterius Andernacus) at Basel, 1556. These 
 fragments might have been derived from some Greek MS. now 
 lost ; but Dr. Puschmann thinks that they were more probably 
 retranslated by Guinther from the Latin back into Greek. There 
 is no doubt that this kind of falsification was sometimes 
 practised at the time of the revival of learning, when the 
 Greek classics were first printed. If a portion of the Greek 
 text was wanting, but was accessible in a Latin translation, 
 the editor would turn this passage from the Latin into the 
 best Greek he could furnish, and print it without comment as 
 the original. 
 
 PAYNE I
 
 58 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 had been almost forgotten, and were inaccessible in 
 Western Europe, since very few authors, and of 
 these mostly fragments only, had been translated 
 o into Latin. Greek medicine had rapidly declined 
 since the time of Galen. In the Eastern empire he 
 still had followers who compiled from his writings, 
 but no worthy successors. The tradition of surgical 
 skill left by the great Graeco-Koman surgeons was 
 completely lost, and no work on surgery belonging 
 to this period is known which shows any practical 
 familiarity with the art. Even the work of Paulus, 
 in the seventh century, which preserved some of 
 its traditions, does not seem to have been widely 
 known. Scientific medicine was being clouded 
 over by the mystical philosophy and magic of 
 the Orientals, Gnostics, and Neoplatonists. The 
 old and sound methods of treatment were being 
 superseded by charms and incantations with mis- 
 applied religious rites. 
 
 There were no medical schools in Italy or Western 
 Europe generally, with one exception, the school of 
 Salerno, which was beginning to emerge from 
 obscurity, and even in the eleventh century pro- 
 duced some notable works. 
 
 The popular medical authors in this period were 
 the few Greek physicians who were accessible in 
 Latin, and the Latin authors already referred to, of 
 whom perhaps the most popular was Marcellus 
 Empiricus. It is difficult to imagine anything 
 called medicine meaner or less scientific than his 
 work. He was not a physician, but a diligent
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 59 
 
 collector of what might be called Eoman medical 
 folklore, and of prescriptions of every sort and com- 
 plexion from all kinds of sources. A large part of 
 his remedies consisted in charms, often of the most 
 puerile kind. Of anatomy, of real pharmacology, of 
 clinical observation, there is not a trace. Plinius, 
 called Valerianus, is probably a fictitious name, but 
 is assigned to a compendium of popular medicine, 
 taken partly from the Natural History of the 
 genuine Pliny, partly from other sources. It 
 shows less credulity than the work of Marcellus, 
 but is totally unscientific. Besides these, there 
 were some popular works of natural history, the 
 Herbarium of Apuleius, and others, of which we 
 shall speak later. 
 
 It is no discredit to the Anglo-Saxon compilers 
 that they failed to construct from these materials 
 any satisfactory body of medical science. But it 
 must also be said that they were quite incapable, 
 from want of experience and of a learned tradition, 
 of supplying anything original from their own 
 resources. There is hardly anything which suggests 
 what we call clinical observation. For example, 
 I have not found feeling the pulse mentioned any- 
 where in the Leech Book, nor is there any account 
 of the appearances presented by the urine, to both 
 of which clinical signs the classical physicians, Greek 
 and Eoman, attached great importance. Indeed, 
 definite symptoms of disease of any kind are seldom 
 pointed out. 
 
 There is still one other source of medical know-
 
 60 LECTURE I: PART III 
 
 ledge from which something in the Leech Book is 
 derived, namely, direct intercourse with the East. 
 One of the most interesting chapters, unfortunately 
 imperfect at the beginning, is that in which are 
 mentioned certain prescriptions sent, doubtless with 
 the drugs prescribed in them, by Helias, Patriarch 
 of Jerusalem, to King Alfred. It is known that 
 Alfred sent envoys to, and had messages from, the 
 Patriarchs of Jerusalem. His biographer, Asser, states 
 distinctly that he himself had seen and read 
 letters, accompanied with presents, which were sent 
 to the king by Abel, Patriarch of Jerusalem \ The 
 date of this record is probably about 888 A. D. : so 
 that the account given in the Leech Book is 
 precisely confirmed. 
 
 The prescriptions quoted in the Leech Book are 
 for the use of certain drugs, the produce of Syria 
 or adjacent lands, viz. scammony, the product of 
 a Syrian convolvulus ; ammoniacum, the native 
 country of which appears to be Armenia ; ' spices ' 
 from Arabia ; dracontian (tragacanth), galbanum, and 
 balsam or balm of Gilead, all indigenous in Asia 
 Minor ; and petroleum, which is still, as of old, 
 found in Judaea. The patriarch also strongly 
 recommends * tyriaca' (6-qpLaK-ff) or treacle, the famous 
 antidote of Andromachus, of which Galen wrote so 
 largely. This last I have not found mentioned else- 
 where in the Anglo-Saxon books, and it was 
 evidently, like the other compound Greek medicines, 
 
 1 Six English Chronicles, edited by Giles, London, 1848, p. 78. 
 ' Abel ' seems to be merely a mistake for Helias.
 
 THE LEECH BOOK OF BALD 61 
 
 unknown to the Saxons. A white stone, Lapis 
 aldbastrites, or alabaster, is also highly commended. 
 The chapter is thus summed up at the end : * All 
 this Dominus Helias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, bid 
 one say to King Alfred V ' 
 
 From the statement of Asser we may infer that 
 the patriarch did not omit to send the drugs at 
 the same time as he sent directions for their use. 
 
 Besides all these things, we find in the Leech 
 Book a large number of charms, formulae of incan- 
 tations, and superstitious rites, though decidedly 
 fewer than in some other books of the Anglo-Saxon 
 medical library. This part of the subject I defer 
 for the present, as also a consideration of the 
 Anglo-Saxon surgery. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 If we analyse the several factors which make 
 up this textbook of medicine used by an Anglo- 
 Saxon practitioner, we find that they are somewhat 
 as follows : 
 
 1. A herbal medicine founded on a wide know- 
 ledge of native plants and garden herbs, which was 
 an original achievement of the Anglo-Saxon leeches, 
 and only in part derived from Latin or other books. 
 
 2. A body of doctrine derived from classical 
 medicine, chiefly from Latin translations of Greek 
 authors, but not always traceable to its original 
 source. 
 
 1 A.-S. L. vol. ii, pp. 175, 289, 291. Scammony is men- 
 tioned in two other places, p. 273 (with a test for its good 
 quality) and p. 281.
 
 62 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 3. Some knowledge of surgery is indicated, 
 but its extent cannot be determined. It may have 
 been partly empirical and traditional, partly 
 derived from books. 
 
 4. There is a superstitious element, consisting 
 of charms and superstitious rites connected with 
 medicine, much of which may be traced to late 
 Greek and Latin medicine, and to formularies used 
 by the clergy. But an indeterminate amount may 
 represent Teutonic and Celtic folklore. 
 
 This subject will be considered in the next 
 lecture. 
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE 'HERBARIUM' OF APULEIUS 
 
 The largest in bulk of the Anglo-Saxon Leech- 
 doms, and that which occupies the first volume of 
 Mr. Cockayne's edition, is a translation into Old 
 English of the Latin Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, 
 with some other short treatises. No less than four 
 MSS. of this translation have survived, a remark- 
 able number considering how scanty the remains of 
 Anglo-Saxon literature are, and showing that the 
 book enjoyed great popularity. The most remark- 
 able MS. is one in the British Museum, originally in 
 the Cottonian Library, which, though sadly damaged 
 by fire, must have once been a splendid volume, 
 beautifully written, and decorated with a large 
 number of coloured figures of plants and animals \ 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. Cottonian MSS., Vitellius, C. iii.
 
 THE 'HERBARIUM' OF APULEIUS 63 
 
 It is believed to have been written about 1000- 
 1050 A.D. One of the three other MSS. was 
 written as late as about 1150. The text as given 
 by Mr. Cockayne is chiefly taken from the first- 
 mentioned copy, with corrections from the others. 
 
 The original work is in Latin, and is attributed to 
 a writer (possibly fictitious) called Apuleius Platoni- 
 cus, who must not be confounded with Apuleius of 
 Madaura, the philosopher and romance writer, 
 author of The Golden Ass. The book is believed to 
 date from about the fifth century, though no copy 
 so old as this is known. Some scholars think it 
 was written in Africa. Nothing whatever is known 
 of the supposed author, and the name Apuleius was 
 probably assumed. In the MSS. the name is 
 strangely corrupted, sometimes Apoliensis and some- 
 times even Plato appearing as the author. The full 
 title is Herbarium Apuleii Platonici quod accepit db 
 Escolapio et Chirone centauro magistro Achillis (' The 
 Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, which he 
 received from Aesculapius and Chiron the Centaur, 
 the master of Achilles '). 
 
 In the Saxon, as in some of the Latin MSS., is a 
 picture showing figures of Escolapius (Aesculapius), 
 Plato, and Centaurus. These three personages are 
 grasping a large volume, which the Centaur and 
 Plato are apparently receiving from Aesculapius, or 
 Plato from the two others. The book consists of 
 132 chapters, each containing an account of a herb, 
 with a figure, coloured in most copies. The text in 
 the A.-S. version begins with the name of the herb
 
 64 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 in English ; but in a few instances the Latin name 
 is merely copied or it is left blank. Then follow 
 in most cases one or two synonyms, and some 
 indication of the locality where the plant is found, 
 e. g. in fields, in ditches, in cultivated places, sandy 
 places, and so on. After this the medicinal uses of 
 the herb are enumerated in several paragraphs. 
 
 These uses are for various diseases, and also for 
 the bites of snakes, scorpions, or other venomous 
 creatures. These animals are often represented in 
 the figures. This fact clearly shows the South 
 European (or perhaps African) origin of the work. 
 
 There are no descriptions, properly so called, of 
 the herbs. It was intended that they should be 
 identified by the figures. 
 
 Besides the Herbarium, which occupies the 
 greater part of the book, there are two other 
 shorter treatises appended. One is a collection 
 of chapters on medicinal herbs, with figures, closely 
 resembling the chapters of the Herbarium, but 
 mostly with some sort of description of the plant. 
 The English names are often omitted, as if the 
 translator did not know them. Most of these 
 descriptions and medicinal uses are from Dios- 
 corides On Materia Medico,, directly or indirectly. 
 The resemblance to the Greek author is sometimes 
 close, sometimes slight ; but of course this insignifi- 
 cant tract corresponds to a small fragment only of 
 his great work. 
 
 Finally, we have a translation of a Latin treatise 
 on medicines derived from animals Medicina de
 
 THE 'HERBARIUM' OF APULEIUS 65 
 
 quadrupedibus. In Latin MSS. the treatise is 
 attributed to Sextus Placitus Papyriensis (or Plato- 
 nicus), but this name does not seem to occur in the 
 Saxon text. Sextus Placitus was an historical per- 
 sonage who lived according to some authorities in 
 the fourth century, according to others in the sixth 
 after Christ. It is generally accepted that he was 
 the author of this not very valuable treatise, which 
 is largely based upon Pliny, with some superstitious 
 charms, and with other prescriptions which, though 
 not magical, are equally absurd. The English 
 version begins as follows : 
 
 ' They say that a king of the Egyptians, hight 
 Idpartus, bid health (or " sent greeting ") to Caesar 
 Octavianus his friend, saying, " By many examples 
 I am aware of thy virtues and prudence, and yet 
 I ween that thou never earnest to know leechdoms of 
 thus mickle might, such as I learn are those which 
 we obtained from Aesculapius. I then make it 
 known for thy instruction and for that I wist thee 
 worthy of this, to wit, that is, of leechcrafts of wild 
 beasts : so far as it is well said." : 
 
 The king Idpartus and the whole message to 
 Octavianus must be pure fiction. Then follow fifty- 
 three chapters on different quadrupeds, each with a 
 picture of the beast, and paragraphs on the medicinal 
 uses of various parts of animals and their excreta. 
 
 To understand the real origin of this collection of 
 treatises we must turn to the Latin MSS. of the 
 same text. These are very numerous in most of 
 the great European libraries, more especially in 
 those of Italy, showing the great popularity of the
 
 66 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 work. The British Museum contains at least four 
 Latin MSS., one of them containing Apuleius only. 
 These are all newer than the Anglo-Saxon version l . 
 The actual original of the Anglo-Saxon version is 
 therefore still to seek. 
 
 The MS. copies of Apuleius, with the additions 
 already mentioned, were multiplied up till the end 
 of the fifteenth century, when the compendium was 
 superseded by the German printed herbals. But 
 a little earlier than the earliest German herbal, 
 the treatise of Apuleius first received the honours 
 of print. An Italian physician, Joh. Philippus de 
 Lignamine, medical adviser to Pope Sixtus IV, and 
 also, like many learned men in those days, a printer, 
 discovered in the library of the Monastery of Monte 
 Cassino a MS. of Apuleius, with coloured figures. 
 This he printed, about the year 1480, at his own 
 press, in a small quarto volume in which the 
 coloured figures of the MS. were represented by 
 rough cuts the earliest known printed figures of 
 plants 2 . The printed text differs from the Anglo- 
 Saxon version chiefly in containing a large number 
 
 1 I say 'at least four' because another very beautiful MS. 
 (Sloane 1975), though not bearing quite the same name, contains 
 the Latin text of all the treatises mentioned above. It was 
 written in England in the fourteenth century, and is placed 
 among the 'select' MSS. of the Library, being exhibited in 
 a show-case. The other Latin texts are Harleian 5294, Harl. 
 4986, Harl. 1585 (from which the above-mentioned Sloane MS. 
 seems to have been derived), Harl. 585 (which is partly Anglo- 
 Saxon, partly Latin), and Additional MS. 17063. 
 
 8 A copy of this extremely rare work may be seen in the 
 British Museum. Other Latin editions are that of Paris, 1528
 
 of Greek and Latin synonyms of the herbs, which 
 would have been superfluous in the English trans- 
 lation. This text, without the figures, has been 
 several times reprinted. 
 
 Comparing the printed book with the MSS., we 
 find that the earliest editor, like the Anglo-Saxon 
 translator, left out some things. To begin with, 
 the first chapter of the Herbarium on vettonica 
 (betony) is really an abridged copy of a separate 
 treatise, De Herba Vettonica, ascribed, though with 
 little probability, to Antonius Musa, physician to 
 the Emperor Augustus. In this, as in some of the 
 other treatises, are curious prayers or conjurations; 
 one addressed to the Earth, 'Precatio Terrae,' be- 
 ginning ' Dea Sancta Tellus ' ; another to all herbs, 
 ' Precatio omnium herbarum ' ; while the sacred herb 
 vettonica has a prayer all to itself. These passages 
 are sometimes illustrated with figures, such as that 
 of a man praying to the goddess of earth, and 
 mythological subjects, as the god Mercury bringing 
 in each hand a bulb or plant of the sacred herb 
 etmolum or moly (garlic) to a classically robed 
 figure dignified with the name '(H)Omerus author' ; 
 meaning, of course, that Homer tells the story 1 . All 
 these things, being purely pagan, were naturally 
 omitted by the Pope's physician, P. de Lignamine 
 (who dedicated his work to a cardinal), as they were 
 
 (with other works), and in the Aldine Collection of Latin 
 medical writers, Medici antiqui omnes qui Latinis literis, etc., 
 Venice, 1547. See figures 6 to 9. 
 1 See figure 17.
 
 68 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 by the Anglo-Saxon translator; but they may be 
 seen in some Latin MSS. in the British Museum, 
 one, at least, of which was written in England 1 . 
 
 We also note a curious point, that the Herbarium 
 of Apuleius has a colophon ' Explicit Liber Platonis 
 de herbis masculinis feliciter,' and the continuation 
 begins * Incipit Liber Dioscoridis. In hoc Libro con- 
 tinentur herbae femineae LXI.' But why the first 
 collection should be called masculine and the latter 
 feminine herbs, I have not been able to discover. 
 We see also that the Anglo-Saxon so-called ' Diosco- 
 rides ' is not quite perfect. 
 
 Another curious point is that the first chapter 
 of the book on 'Medicines from Quadrupeds' is 
 written as a separate treatise in some MSS., with 
 the title Epistola de Taxone or Epistola de Bestiola 
 quam aliqui melem vacant, Quidam vero Taxonem. That 
 is, * a letter on the Badger.' 
 
 We also observe that in some cases the Saxon 
 translator has expanded the Latin text by the 
 addition of new prescriptions for the use of the 
 drugs. 
 
 These details are not important in themselves, 
 but the general conclusion is important, namely, 
 that this collection of treatises on natural history 
 existed as a whole in the Latin, and was translated 
 
 1 See the Harleian MS. 1585, and the later Sloane MS. 1975 
 founded upon it, which was certainly of English origin, and 
 belonged to a convent. These beautiful works of archaic art are 
 well worth inspection, imperfect as they may be from a botanical 
 point of view.
 
 THE 'HERBARIUM' OF APULEIUS 69 
 
 as a whole into the early English or Saxon tongue. 
 Hence the supposition that any part was translated 
 direct from the Greek of Dioscorides falls to the 
 ground. Nor can we suppose that the Anglo-Saxon 
 translator compiled his work from many sources. 
 One Latin MS., of a kind of which there are many 
 in European libraries, would have sufficed. 
 
 The whole constitutes, according to our ideas, 
 a very poor book of natural history. In the 
 sections on plants there is, strictly speaking, no 
 botany, and the therapeutical part belongs to the 
 lowest period of Koman medicine. The zoology is 
 contemptible. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon scholars showed 
 their intelligence and good sense in making this 
 poor book their own. Desiring to improve their 
 knowledge of natural history in relation to medicine, 
 they took the best work on the subject they could 
 find in Europe, translated it into the vernacular 
 tongue for general use, carefully copied the pictures 
 by which the plants were to be identified, and 
 whenever it was possible replaced the Latin names 
 by their English equivalents. 
 
 Before speaking of the figures, which constitute 
 a very important part of these MSS., it will be well 
 to give some specimens of the text. 
 
 RAVENS' LEEK (A SPECIES or OBCHIS). 
 
 'i. This wort, which is called <ra,Tvpiov, and by 
 another name ravens' leek, is produced on high 
 downs, and in hard places, and also in meadows, 
 and in cultivated lands, and in sandy ones.
 
 70 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 1 2. For difficult wounds, take roots of this wort, 
 which we named satyrion, and which also some 
 men call priapiscus, and pound together; it cleanseth 
 the wounds and cures the scars. 
 
 '3. For sore of eyes, that is, when that one be 
 blear-eyed, take juice of this wort, and smear the 
 eyes therewith ; without delay it removes the sore.' 
 (A.-S. L. i. 109.) 
 
 A figure of this herb is given, evidently an orchis; 
 but the draughtsman so misunderstood it that he 
 has not made the flowers properly attached to the 
 stem. (See fig. I.) 
 
 MUGWORT (Artemisia vulgaris). 
 
 4 1. This wort, which is called artemisia, and by 
 another name mugwort, is produced in stony places, 
 and in sandy ones. Then, if any propose a journey, 
 let him take him in hand this wort artemisia, and 
 let him have it with him, then he will not feel much 
 toil on his journey. And it also puts to flight devil- 
 sickness (demoniac possession) ; and in the house in 
 which one hath it within, it forbiddeth evil leech- 
 crafts, and also it turneth away the (evil) eyes of evil 
 men. 
 
 *2. For sore of inwards, take the same wort, and 
 pound it to dust, and mix it with new beer ; give 
 it to drink, soon it relieves the sore of the inwards. 
 
 '3. For sore of feet, take the same wort and pound 
 it with lard, lay it to the feet ; it removes the sore- 
 ness of the feet.' (A.-S. L. i. 103.) 
 
 BROWNWORT (Ceterach officinarum). 
 
 1 1. For disease of spleen, take roots of this same 
 wort, which the Greeks name aa-nXriviov (asplenium], 
 and the Komans teucrium, and also the English call 
 brownwort ; pound it to small dust ; give it to drink 
 in light wine, therewith thou wilt observe a remark-
 
 THE * HERBARIUM ' OF APULEIUS 71 
 
 able thing (i. e. a wonderful cure). Also it is said 
 that the wort was found out thus : that is, it once 
 happened that a man scraped (in the Latin threw 
 out] intestines with the spleen upon this wort, then 
 soon the spleen clave to this wort, and it quickly 
 consumed the spleen ; for which reason some men 
 called it splenitm, which (spleen) in our language is 
 called the milt. Hence it is said that swine which 
 eat its roots are found to be without a spleen \ 
 
 '2. Some also say that it has a stalk with twigs 
 like hyssop and leaves like beans, hence some men 
 name it by the same name hyssop. The wort is 
 gathered when it is in full blossom. It is of a famed 
 kind in the mountain lands which are named Cilicia 
 and Pisidia.' (A.-S. L. i. 159.) 
 
 YARROW (Achillea millefolium). 
 
 1 1. Of this wort, which is named millefolium and 
 in our language yarrow, it is said that Achilles the 
 ' alderman ' (i. e. chieftain) found it out ; and he, 
 with this same wort, healed them who were struck 
 and wounded with iron. Also, for that reason, it is 
 named of some men Achillea. With this wort it is 
 said that he also healed a man named Telephos. 
 
 ' 2. For toothache, take a root of this wort, which 
 we named millefolium ; give it to eat fasting. 
 
 ' 3. For wounds which are made with iron, take 
 this same wort, pounded with grease ; lay it to the 
 wounds ; it purgeth and healeth the wounds. 
 
 '4. For a swelling take this same wort mille- 
 folium pounded with butter ; lay it to the swelling. 
 
 1 This extraordinary story is thus told by Apuleius, and comes 
 originally from Pliny (Nat. Hist, xxv, 20), who ascribes the 
 discovery of the herb to Teucer. The next paragraph also comes 
 from Pliny. In the Anglo-Saxon version the sense is confused. 
 It only means that some give the same name (splenium) to 
 a quite different herb.
 
 72 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 ' 5. In case that any man with difficulty can pass 
 water, take juice of this same wort with vinegar, 
 give it him to drink ; wondrously it healeth.' 
 
 There follow in the Anglo-Saxon version, eleven 
 more paragraphs about yarrow, which are not con- 
 tained in the Latin text. I give only one of 
 them. 
 
 '7. If a man's head burst, or a strange (unnatural) 
 swelling appear on it, let him take roots of this same 
 wort, and bind them on his neck ; then cometh to 
 him good benefit/ (A.-S. L. i. p. 195.) 
 
 This last is curious because the use of amulets or 
 periapts (that is, drugs merely worn upon the body) 
 is rarely alluded to in Apuleius, and this paragraph 
 was probably an addition by the Saxon translator. 
 
 MANDRAGORA 
 
 The last chapter in Apuleius treats of the mandra- 
 gora or mandrake, a plant of which so many fables 
 have been told. This is not an English plant, and 
 probably at this time was not even cultivated in 
 English gardens, as it was later ; so that the Anglo- 
 Saxons had no direct knowledge of it, and only 
 repeated what they read about it in the Latin books. 
 The following is the Anglo-Saxon version : 
 
 MANDRAGORA (MANDBAKE. Atropa Mandragora). 
 
 'i. This wort, which is named //aj/<S/>ay6pay, is great 
 and illustrious of aspect, and it is beneficial. Thou 
 shalt in this manner take it. When thou comest 
 to it, then thou shalt recognize it by this, that it 
 shineth at night altogether like a lamp. When
 
 THE 'HERBARIUM' OF APULEIUS 73 
 
 first thou seest its head, then inscribe (Latin text 
 surround) 1 thou it instantly with iron, lest it flee 
 from thee ; its virtue is so great and so famous that 
 it will immediately flee from an unclean man when 
 he cometh to it, hence, as we said before, do thou 
 "inscribe" it with iron ; and thou shalt delve about 
 it so that thou touch it not with the iron, but thou 
 shalt earnestly with an ivory staff delve the earth. 
 And when thou seest its hands and its feet, then 
 tie thou it up. Then take the other end and tie it 
 to a dog's neck, so that the hound be hungry ; next 
 cast meat before him so that he may not reach it, 
 except he jerk up the wort with him. Of this wort 
 it is said that it hath so great might, that whatsoever 
 thing diggeth it up shall soon in the same manner 
 be deceived (i. e. shall fall down dead) 2 . Therefore 
 as soon as thou see that it be jerked up, and have 
 possession of it, take it immediately in hand, and 
 twist it, and wring the juice out of its leaves into 
 a glass ampulla (or pitcher), and when need come 
 upon thee that thou shouldst therewith help any 
 man, then help thou him in this manner. 
 
 1 2. For headache, and in case that a man may not 
 sleep, take the juice, smear the forehead ; and the 
 wort also in the same manner relieveth the head- 
 ache ; and also thou wonderest how quickly the 
 sleep cometh. 
 
 '4. For podagra, though it be very severe, take of 
 the right hand of this wort and also of the left, of 
 either hand by three pennies' weight; reduce to dust ; 
 give to drink in wine for seven days ; (the patient) 
 will be healed, not only so that the swelling is allayed, 
 
 1 It is evident that the Anglo-Saxon translation was an error, 
 since the herb was not to be touched with iron. The Latin 
 word is circumducere, meaning to make a line round or outside it 
 with iron. 
 
 2 In the Latin text the word is decipere, which is evidently 
 a mistake for decidere = fall down dead, die.
 
 74 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 but it also healeth the tugging of the sinews and 
 wonderfully healeth both the evils. 
 
 ' 5. For witlessness, that is, for devil-sickness 
 (demoniacal possession), take from the body of the 
 same wort mandragora by weight of three pennies, 
 administer to drink in warm water, as he may find 
 most convenient ; soon he will be healed. 
 
 ' 7. If any see some grave mischief in his house, 
 let him take this wort mandragora, as much as he 
 may then have, into the middle of the house ; he 
 banisheth all evils out of the house V (A.-S. L. i. 245.) 
 
 In the Latin edition printed by Philip de Ligna- 
 mine (about 1480) the directions for digging up the 
 mandrake are omitted, but they are contained in most 
 of the Latin MSS. Some other prescriptions are 
 added, among which is a remarkable one for the use 
 of the herb as an anaesthetic, omitted in the Anglo- 
 Saxon version. 
 
 ' If any one has to have a limb amputated, or 
 burnt, or cut, let him drink an ounce and a half in 
 wine, and he will sleep so long that the limb may 
 be cut off without pain or feeling.' 
 
 This is a very early, perhaps the earliest, notice 
 in a Latin book of surgical anaesthesia, though the 
 original observation came from Dioscorides 2 . 
 
 The various legends connected with the mandra- 
 gora can be best understood with the help of the 
 
 1 This doubtless refers to evil spirits. 
 
 8 This prescription was repeated in many mediaeval books up 
 to the Hortus Sanitatis of the fifteenth century. Probably the 
 practice was occasionally resorted to; since Johannes Vigo 
 speaks in his Surgery of this use of mandragora, but says it was 
 not without great danger. See the English translation of his 
 works, 1571, fol. 193.
 
 THE ' HERBARIUM ' OF APULEIUS 75 
 
 old pictures. We see that the plant had a tap-root, 
 often double (but, as Gerard protests, by no means 
 always so), which suggested the figure of a man in 
 fact, 'a forked radish with the head curiously carved.' 
 (Possibly this odd description of a man was suggested 
 to Shakespeare by the figure of Mandragora in an old 
 herbal.) Then it was imagined that some specimens 
 were like a man, others like a woman ; and botanists 
 made two species 1 . Then the powerful narcotic 
 odour of the fresh root may possibly have sometimes 
 affected the senses, and accordingly the fable sprung 
 up that it was fatal to dig up the root, and an 
 innocent dog was made the victim. Another story- 
 was that the semi-human plant, when it was torn 
 up, uttered a shriek, which it was death to hear. 
 Accordingly, the bystanders are sometimes repre- 
 sented as stopping their ears. In some figures, 
 probably the earliest, we see only a transition from 
 a modified root to something like a human form ; 
 but in the later figures there is a complete human 
 head with long hair, and the sexes are distinguished. 
 Figures of this kind were made artificially out of 
 various roots, and popularly sold, even in Gerard's 
 time. 
 
 But to pursue this subject further would take too 
 long. I will only remark that the fabulous virtues 
 of this plant in relation to sexual matters are not 
 mentioned by the Latin writers (though there is 
 
 1 There are, in fact, two species, but one is not more like a man 
 or a woman than the other.
 
 76 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 a slight allusion to them in Dioscorides), nor by 
 their Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval followers. This 
 particular form of superstition seems to have come 
 from the East *. 
 
 THE FIGURES OF HERBS 
 
 If we compare the series of figures of plants 
 which run through the Latin and English MSS. of 
 Apuleius, we are struck with the fact that they are 
 very frequently copied one from another. This is 
 especially the case in the earlier MSS., while in 
 the later copies, which come down as late as the 
 fifteenth century, there is greater variety. Though 
 it is not possible to trace one uniform series through 
 all the books, it is quite clear that the figures were 
 not generally copied direct from the plants. They 
 were copied from older figures, and these from 
 others older still, so that we should have to go 
 back through several generations of copyists, and 
 probably through several centuries, before we could 
 arrive at the prototype or original picture made by 
 an artist from the original herb. It is strange to 
 think that we may be now looking at figures of 
 plants, many times copied, of which the originals 
 were blooming several centuries ago. 
 
 The supposition that there were some ancient 
 drawings from which most of the existing illustra- 
 
 1 For the commonsense view of mandragora, see Turner's 
 Herbal, 1568, Part II, fol. 46; Gerard's Herbal, 1597, p. 280; or 
 Matthiolus's Commentaries on Dioscorides (of which there are 
 many editions), under the word. For figures of Mandragora see 
 Figs- 3> 4> 5> 6 -
 
 THE FIGURES OF HERBS 77 
 
 tions of the Herbarium have, so to speak, descended 
 is more than plausible. Botanical illustrations were 
 not unknown to the ancients. Pliny gives the 
 names of three Greek botanists Crateuas, Diony- 
 sius, Metrodorus who introduced this attractive 
 method of teaching medical botany. * They printed 
 the likeness of herbs, and wrote under them their 
 effects (and uses).' But Pliny himself remarks on 
 the fallacies introduced by the degeneration of the 
 figures in the hands of copyists l . 
 
 Examples of these ancient botanical illustrations 
 still survive, however, in the Greek MSS. of Dios- 
 corides on Materia Medica, illustrated with coloured 
 figures ; of which five are known to exist 2 . 
 
 The figures in these MSS. are extremely interest- 
 ing in the history of botany, and are valued as helps 
 
 1 C. Plinii Naturalis Historia, lib. xxv, cap. 4. Crateuas 
 is said to have lived in the first century B.C. He is quoted 
 by Galen and Dioscorides, as well as by Pliny. See Gurlt, 
 Biographisches Lexicon der Aerzte, vol. vi, p. 887. 
 
 2 Two of these MSS. are in the Imperial Library at Vienna ; 
 two at Paris in the Bibliotheque Nationale, one of which is 
 undescribed ; one is or was in the Phillipps Library, Cheltenham. 
 One of the Vienna MSS. is known to have been written at the 
 end of the fifth century B.C.; the other is older, but of less 
 certain date. The other MSS. are later. See article by Dr. 
 E. Bonnet, ' Essai de 1'identification des plantes medicinales 
 mentionnees par Dioscoride,' Janus, April, 1903, p. 169, and fol- 
 lowing numbers; also Daubeny, Lectures on Roman Husbandry, 
 X 857, p. 231. Few of these figures have been published, but 
 a collection of engravings from one of the Vienna MSS. is pre- 
 served at the Botanic Garden, Oxford, and a smaller series in the 
 library of the Linnean Society, London. A few are copied in 
 Dr. Daubeny's book.
 
 78 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 in identifying the plants mentioned by Dioscorides, 
 though they have been found less valuable in this 
 respect than was anticipated. Judging from the 
 copies which I have seen, they do not seem to throw 
 any light on the origin of the figures which are 
 found in the MSS. of Apuleius, though the style of 
 art is very similar. The older figures are, however, 
 less conventional. 
 
 All these figures of plants have certain general 
 characters in common, by which they differ from 
 modern botanical figures, and exhibit the characters 
 of Graeco-Boman or classical art ; showing the way 
 the classical artist went to work in representing 
 objects of natural history. The figures are formal 
 rather than realistic ; what we should now call 
 diagrammatic, giving rather the artist's idea of the 
 plant derived from a knowledge of several specimens, 
 than an actual portrait of one specimen. They are 
 very generally symmetrical on both sides and 
 modified into graceful forms. These characters are 
 seen in the Anglo-Saxon copies as well as in the 
 Latin MSS., and this feature should be taken into 
 account in estimating the value of the figures. 
 
 The portraits of some plants are at least recogniz- 
 able ; others have departed so far from the original 
 prototype that we can hardly guess what they were 
 meant for. The artists who copied them from one 
 MS. to another seem to have been tempted to show 
 their skill by treating the plant as an artistic object, 
 making it in some cases purely decorative, in others 
 wildly fanciful.
 
 THE FIGURES OF HERBS 79 
 
 Now it might seem that the Anglo-Saxon artists, 
 whose skill in drawing, as we know from other 
 examples, was certainly considerable, might have 
 produced better figures if they had copied the plants 
 direct from nature. But before condemning them 
 for contenting themselves with copying old ex- 
 amples, we must consider what the object of intro- 
 ducing these figures was. It was not to illustrate 
 the book by representations of known objects; it was 
 to identify the plants described by the old writers. 
 This could only be done by adhering strictly to the 
 old figures. Had the artist given figures of what 
 he believed to be the plants intended by the old 
 writers, he might have made a wrong identification. 
 Hence simple copying was the only plan which 
 would serve the purpose for which the book was 
 intended, namely, identification. The Anglo-Saxon 
 artists followed the only conscientious, and accord- 
 ing to their view, useful method, so that I do not 
 suppose a single figure in the Saxon MS. was, 
 or was intended to be, a direct transcript from 
 nature. 
 
 ENGLISH NAMES OF HERBS 
 
 In translating the Herbarium, the Anglo-Saxon 
 translators substituted as far as possible native 
 English names for those of the original. In some 
 cases they could only modify or translate the Latin. 
 Thus Pes leonis would naturally be rendered ' Lion's 
 foot,' Lilium would become * Lilie,' and so on. Some- 
 times the translator could find no English name,
 
 80 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 and retained the Latin, or left a blank. In some 
 cases the identification is evidently wrong ; but 
 making all these allowances, it is still remarkable 
 for how many plants there was an English name 
 already existing. Many of these still survive, many 
 unfortunately are lost. The first name of a herb 
 in the original book, for instance, vettonica or 
 betonica is translated ' bishopswort,' where we have 
 now only the modified Latin word 'betony.' The 
 next is arnoglossa or plantago, rendered l waybrade ' 
 or 'waybroad,' a picturesque name for the broad- 
 leaved weed of waysides and lawns, which we now 
 call by the misleading appellation * plantain.' Un- 
 fortr&dde ( l untrodden to pieces ') is an appropriate 
 name for the stubborn weed knotgrass, and maythe 
 (msegthe) is more attractive than the modified Greek 
 camomile. Many other instances might be quoted, 
 not merely as philological curiosities, but as show- 
 ing that the Anglo-Saxons, before they translated 
 Apuleius, had recognized and given English names 
 to a large number of native plants. Similar 
 evidence is supplied by the numerous English 
 names occurring in the other Leech Books, and 
 also in the 'glossaries' or lists giving English 
 equivalents for Latin and Greek names of plants, 
 which are a familiar feature in Old English and 
 Middle English Literature. Of these lists, at least 
 six are known which definitely belong to the Old 
 English or Anglo-Saxon period, being written 
 before the middle of the twelfth century *. 
 1 Earle's English Plant Names, Oxford, 1880.
 
 ENGLISH NAMES OF HERBS 81 
 
 From all these sources Mr. Cockayne has com- 
 piled a list of between 700 and 800 names of plants 
 used in the Anglo-Saxon period \ If we deduct 
 from these all of later date than 1150, as well as 
 all purely Latin names or translations (though a few 
 which had become vernacular, such as ' rose,' must 
 be admitted), we find about 500 English names 
 of plants in use during the period named. It 
 would not necessarily follow that the Anglo-Saxons 
 had recognized and named 500 plants, since there 
 must have been some synonyms and some names 
 inaccurately applied, but it shows a very extensive 
 knowledge of herbs. 
 
 The point becomes clearer if we compare this 
 number with the number of plants enumerated in 
 other books. The Herbarium of Apuleius, with the 
 additions from Dioscorides, gives 185 plants. In 
 a very interesting work by the Eev. G. Henslow, 
 Medical Works of the Fourteenth Century (London, 
 1899), a list is given of names and synonyms of 
 plants mentioned in works of the fourteenth 
 century. This list shows an increasing use of Latin 
 and also of French names. Making deductions 
 similar to those used in the other case, I find the 
 number of English names is something like 400. 
 Certainly there is some falling-off as compared 
 with the Anglo-Saxon period. The earliest herbal 
 printed in Germany, the Herbarius of 1484, 
 records only 150 plants. The next, the German 
 Herbarius of 1485, gives 380 ; and the great Latin 
 
 1 Cockayne, A.-S. L. vol. iii, p. 311.
 
 82 LECTURE I: PART IV 
 
 Hortm Sanitatis of 1491 has 530, including many 
 foreign plants. There seems to have been no 
 increase in the number of species known to 
 botanists. It is only in the herbals of the sixteenth 
 century, when the science of botany took a new 
 start, that we find a real advance, and an immense 
 number of new species recorded. 
 
 The general conclusion to be drawn from all 
 these facts is that the Anglo-Saxons took a keen 
 and genuine interest in the study of plants for 
 medicinal uses. Much of this was doubtless due to 
 the monkish physicians and the herb-gardens of the 
 monasteries, but there must also have been a popu- 
 lar and widespread love of flowers a national 
 characteristic which may still be recognized in the 
 cottage gardens of the South of England. Along 
 with this there went accurate observation and dis- 
 crimination, so that these unlearned botanists were 
 able to recognize and name a much larger number 
 of native plants than they could have known 
 through the translated Latin books. Their know- 
 ledge of botany was not only much more extensive 
 than has been supposed, but it was original. 
 
 It is strange that after the Anglo-Saxon period 
 there was so little progress, the principal change 
 observable in the mediaeval literature of botany 
 being the giving of new names to known plants. 
 Indeed, we cannot help agreeing with the hard 
 saying of Professor Earle, that ' there was a great 
 decadence in botanical knowledge in England 
 between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries/
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 PART I 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 
 
 THEKE are not many references to surgery in the 
 Anglo-Saxon Leech Books, and there is nothing like 
 a regular treatise on the subject. This would not 
 by any means imply that there was no knowledge 
 of surgery or no regular profession of surgeons. 
 Surgery has always been less connected with book 
 learning, and less dependent upon literature for its 
 maintenance and progress, than has been internal 
 medicine. Surgery, as its name implies, is essen- 
 tially a handicraft, and may, like other crafts, reach 
 a considerable degree of excellence without possess- 
 ing a literature. Practical skill in it may be handed 
 on from one generation to another by apprentice- 
 ship and tradition without any aid from books. 
 There must be surgeons before there is a systematic 
 art of surgery ; there must be an art of surgery 
 before there is a surgical literature. Hence surgical 
 books come late in the development of the pro- 
 fession. It is clear that there were surgeons in 
 England at least from the seventh century onwards, 
 though they had no special name distinguishing 
 them from leeches in general. This is abundantly 
 shown by the historical notices quoted in the 
 former lecture. They had not, however, reached so
 
 84 LECTURE II: PART I 
 
 high a stage of development as to produce a surgical 
 literature. Therefore the scanty notices of surgery 
 in the Anglo-Saxon books must be taken as 
 implying a wider range of experience than they 
 actually display ; while, on the other hand, when 
 directions for difficult operations are copied from 
 some old author, it may sometimes be the case that 
 the Saxon translator is describing an operation 
 which he never himself performed. 
 
 The treatment of accidents seems to have been 
 simple : for instance : 
 
 1 For broken head, take betony : bruise it and lay 
 it on the head above ; then it unites the wound and 
 healeth.' 
 
 ' Again, for the same : take garden cress, that 
 which waxeth of itself, and is not sown ; put it in 
 the nose, that the smell and the juice may get to 
 the head.' 
 
 Another prescription for the same is a wort drink 
 made of wallflower and attorlothe (Panicum crus 
 galli], and pellitory and wood marche (Sanicula 
 Europaea), and brown wort (Ceterach officinarum) 
 and betony. 
 
 ' Make all the worts into a wort drink, and mix 
 therewith the small cleaver (Galium aparine] and 
 centaury and waybroad (Plantago mawr), of all 
 most especially betony ; and if the brain be exposed, 
 take the yolk of an egg and mix a little with honey, 
 and fill the wound and swathe up with tow, and so 
 let it alone ; and again, after about three days, 
 syringe the wound, and if the hale sound part shall 
 have a red ring about the wound, know thou then 
 that thou mayest not heal it ' ( A.-S. L. ii. 23).
 
 ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 85 
 
 For broken bones we have the following pre- 
 scription : 
 
 'If the shanks be broken, take bonewort (ban- 
 wort ; generally interpreted as violet or pansy), 
 pound it, pour the white of an egg out, mingle these 
 together for the man whose shanks are broken. 
 
 ' For a broken limb, lay this salve on the broken 
 limb, and overlay with elm-rind, apply a splint ; 
 again, always renew these till the limb be healed. 
 Clean some elm-rind, and boil it thoroughly, then 
 remove the rind, take ground linseed and brew it up 
 with the drink (decoction) of elm. That shall be 
 a good salve for a broken limb ' (A.-S. L. ii. 67). 
 
 There are several references to flow of synovia! 
 fluid ' lith-seaw ' or ' lithule ' (joint-juice or joint-oil) 
 from a joint. This implies a wound of the joint, 
 though it is not positively so stated l . The remedies 
 for the lesion were such as the following : 
 
 'Burn lithwort (jointwort, sambucus, elder), 
 hound's head (?), and pound them up with roasted 
 apple ; mingle all that together ; apply it.' 
 
 1 Take vinegar and sour crumbs of barley loaf and 
 earthworms, mingle together, and bind on ; wet 
 the joint with vinegar or with sour ale' (A.-S. L. 
 
 ii- 133-5). 
 
 Nothing is said of any further surgical treatment, 
 so we must suppose that the surgery of joints was at 
 a very low ebb. 
 
 For dislocations I find only one prescription. 
 
 'If a man be wounded on the top of his head 
 and the bone be broken, take sigelwherf (probably 
 
 1 Mr. Cockayne refers to a passage from Alfred's Laws, 
 showing that this kind of wound was the subject of special 
 enactment (A.-S. L. ii. 132).
 
 86 LECTURE II: PART I 
 
 marigold) l and white clover plants and woodruff ; 
 put into good butter and strain through a cloth. 
 
 ' 2. If the shoulder get up out of place, take the 
 salve, apply a little warm with a feather ; it will 
 soon be well with the man ' (A.-S. L. ii. 327). 
 
 But we need not suppose that the surgeons knew 
 nothing of mechanical reduction of dislocations. 
 
 For cancer we find the following extraordinary 
 remedies : 
 
 'Take goat's gall and honey, mingle together of 
 both equal parts, apply to the wound. 
 
 ' For the same : Burn a fresh hound's head to 
 ashes, apply to the wound. If it will not yield to 
 that, take a man's dung, dry it thoroughly, rub 
 to dust, apply it. If with this thou art not able to 
 cure him, thou mayst never do it by any means' 
 (A.~S. L. ii. 329). 
 
 For wounds in general there is a very efficient 
 ointment : 
 
 ' Work a good wound salve thus : Take yarrow, 
 and the nether part of woodruff, feldmore (wild 
 carrot), and the nether part of sigelwherf ; boil in 
 good butter, wring through a cloth, and let it stand. 
 Pretty well every wound thou mayst cure there- 
 with ' (A.-S. L. ii. 327). 
 
 The most elaborate surgical operation described 
 in the Leech Book of Bald is that for opening an 
 abscess of the liver (Book II, cap. xxii, A.-S. L. 
 ii. 207-9). 
 
 1 Sigelwherf means the same as Solsequium or Heliotropium, 
 a plant supposed to turn towards the sun. It is interpreted in 
 glossaries, ' golds,' which might mean the corn marigold or garden 
 marigold (Calendula).
 
 ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 87 
 
 The chapter is headed ' For the sensitive hardness 
 of the Liver.' In the first place, various lotions and 
 fomentations are recommended, the ingredients of 
 which are suggestive of some borrowing from 
 Alexander Trallianus, but the subject is continued 
 in a manner quite different from the treatment 
 recommended by that author. Other ' wort drinks ' 
 are prescribed ' if the swelling is become an abscess 
 and bursteth.' If pus is discharged by the urine, 
 diuretics are to be given, and the prognosis is good, 
 since the matter may be got rid of in this way. * If, 
 however, the swelling and the pus mount up to that 
 degree that it may seem possible for one to cut into 
 it and let it out,' then proceed as follows : 
 
 ' First make a salve of culvers' (pigeons') dung l 
 and the like, and bathe the part with water and the 
 worts before spoken of. 
 
 * When thou understandest that the swelling is 
 growing soft and mild, then touch thou it with the 
 cutting iron, and cut a little and cleverly, so that 
 the blood may come out, lest an evil pouch (or 
 sinus) descend in thither. Do not let too much 
 blood at one time, lest the sick man become too 
 languid or die ; but when thou dost prick or cut it, 
 then have a linen cloth ready that thou mayst 
 soon bind up the cut therewith ; and when thou 
 wilt again let more, draw the cloth off, let it out 
 a little at a time till it gets dry. And when the 
 wound is clean, then enlarge it that the thirl (or 
 aperture) be not too narrow ; but do thou every day 
 syringe through it with a tube, and wash it out by 
 those means ; after that, lay thereon what may 
 
 1 This is recommended as an outward application by Paulus 
 Aegineta.
 
 88 LECTURE II: PART I 
 
 cleanse the wound. If it turn very impure, cleanse 
 it with honey and draw it again together/ 
 
 After this comes a remarkable observation : 
 ' When the insensible hardening of the liver is of 
 too long duration then it forms a dropsy which 
 cannot be cured.' This evidently refers to cirrhosis 
 of the liver with ascites ; and is remarkable because 
 long after this, and up to the seventeenth century, 
 the prevalent belief was that dropsy caused hardening 
 of the internal organs instead of being caused by 
 it. The Saxon text gives, however, the doctrine 
 of the Greek physicians, such as Aretaeus and 
 Alexander. 
 
 With regard to the operation itself, I can find no 
 description like it in any Greek or Latin author. 
 Alexander Trallianus does not speak of an operation, 
 nor does Paulus Aegineta nor Galen. Aretaeus 
 speaks of opening an abscess of the liver with a red 
 hot instrument, and the operation is said to be 
 spoken of by Hippocrates (though I have been 
 unable to trace the reference), and the recommenda- 
 tion is repeated by Aetius. But this is a different 
 operation from that spoken of in the Anglo-Saxon 
 text, and no full description is given by any of the 
 authors named. 
 
 Celsus, indeed, says that some people open a 
 vomica (abscess) of the liver with a scalpel, but 
 gives no details. Indeed I have not been able to 
 find so elaborate and complete a description of the 
 operation in any ancient writer. 
 
 It is clear, then, that this passage was not bor-
 
 ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 89 
 
 rowed from any of the ancient surgical texts now 
 known to us ; and the Saxon writer must have had 
 access to some ancient works which have not sur- 
 vived ; unless, indeed, the account was merely based 
 upon the actual experience of a contemporary 
 surgeon. Without saying that this is an impossible 
 supposition, I think we must admit that it is not 
 very probable. 
 
 There is an operation for hare-lip mentioned 
 (A.-S. L. ii. 57), which, like that for abscess of the 
 liver, seems above the general average of the 
 surgery. 
 
 * For hare-lip, pound mastic very small, add the 
 white of egg, and mingle as thou dost vermilion *, 
 cut with a knife, sew fast with silk, then smear 
 without and in with the salve, ere the silk rot. If 
 it draw together, arrange it with the hand ; anoint 
 again soon.' 
 
 This isolated fragment of plastic surgery is not 
 described in such a way as to make it clear that the 
 Saxon leech had actually performed the operation 
 or seen it performed. But I have not been able to 
 find the original of the passage in any ancient 
 author. 
 
 Amputations are spoken of, but seem to have been 
 performed only for gangrene of a limb ; and in this 
 limitation the Anglo-Saxons seem to have followed 
 the old Greek surgeons, for neither they, nor their 
 followers the Arabians, nor the mediaeval doctors 
 
 1 This seems to mean as vermilion is mixed with white of egg 
 for painting. In the old painting for decoration of books, white 
 of egg was the medium chiefly employed.
 
 90 LECTURE II: PART I 
 
 seem to have generally recommended amputation of 
 a limb for any other lesion. 
 
 In the chapter, 'Of blackened and deadened body' 
 (A.-S. L. ii. 83) we read, after some description of 
 the condition : 
 
 'If the wan (livid) or red things be come from 
 without, from wounds or cuttings or blows, soon do 
 thou heal those "things" with scarifyings and on- 
 layings (poultices ?) of barley, after the manner which 
 leeches well know ; thou shalt amend it. If the 
 blackened part be to that degree deadened that no 
 feeling be therein, then must thou cut away all the 
 dead and unfeeling part, as far as the quick, so that 
 there be nought remaining of the dead flesh, which 
 before felt neither iron nor fire. After that one 
 shall heal the wounds l '. 
 
 After some directions for after treatment, the 
 writer goes on: 
 
 'Apply the leechdoms according as thou seest 
 (the state of) the body. For a great difference there 
 is in the bodies of a man, woman, or child, between 
 that of a daily wright (workman) and that of the 
 idle, between old and young, &c. 
 
 'If thou wilt carve off or cut off a limb from a body, 
 then look thou of what sort the place be, and the 
 strength of the place, since some of the places readily 
 rot if one carelessly tends them ; some feel the 
 leechdoms earlier, some later. If thou must carve 
 off or cut off an unhealthy limb from a healthy body, 
 then carve thou not it on the edge of the healthy 
 body ; but much more cut or carve on the whole and 
 living body; so thou shalt better and readier cure it.' 
 
 Nothing is said about any means for arresting 
 
 1 Text is corrupt here. What Cockayne reads 'dolh swa thu' 
 = wounds as thou, must be ' dolhswathu ' = wound-traces, and 
 the scribe seems to have missed a line out.
 
 ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 91 
 
 haemorrhage after the operation. But Haeser (Gesch. 
 der Medicin, i. 500) remarks that the surgical 
 writers after Celsus and Galen seldom mentioned 
 these precautions, as if they took them for granted. 
 Therefore, we need not suppose that the Saxon 
 surgeons were quite unacquainted with any methods 
 for stopping bleeding from severed or wounded 
 vessels. 
 
 In the treatise called Book III of the Leech Book 
 of Bald, but which really is no part of that work, 
 there is a curious bit of rough surgery. 
 
 ' If a man's headpan (skull) be " gelenked " (trans- 
 lated seemingly iron-bound by the editor), lay the 
 man with face upward, drive two stakes into the 
 ground at the armpits, then lay a plank across his 
 feet, then strike on it thrice with a sledge beetle. 
 It will soon come right ' (A.-S. L. ii. 343). 
 
 It is not quite clear what is meant by the curious 
 term 'gelenked.' We might think of something 
 which produces rigidity of the neck, dislocation of 
 cervical vertebrae, tetanus, or only the familiar 
 1 stiff neck.' With regard to the extraordinary pro- 
 cedure suggested, it would be useless to speculate 
 exactly what was intended. Possibly there was 
 some vague recollection of the benches or other 
 wooden machines, known by such names as the 
 Scamnum Hippocratis, the Plinthium Nilei, &c., 
 used by the Greek surgeons for reducing dislo- 
 cations *. 
 
 1 Figures attempting to reconstruct these machines are given 
 by Vidus Vidius in illustration of a treatise of Oribasius, taken 
 from Heliodorus : De Machinamentis (Chirurgia e Graeco in
 
 92 LECTURE II: PART I 
 
 This is more intelligible : 
 
 1 If a man's bowel be out, pound galluc (comfrey), 
 wring through a cloth into milk warm from the 
 cow, wet thy hands therein, and put back the bowel 
 into the man, sew up with silk, then boil him galluc 
 for nine mornings, except need be for a longer time. 
 Feed him with fresh hens' flesh ' (A.-S. L. ii. 359). 
 
 Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) had the reputation 
 of possessing great power in uniting wounds or 
 broken parts ; and is still used for that purpose 1 in 
 England. 
 
 The actual cautery was used by the Saxon sur- 
 geons ; thus in a leechdom for wounds we read : 
 
 * If the edges of the wound are too high (granu- 
 lations ?) run them round with a hot iron very lightly, 
 so that the skin may whiten ' (A.-S. L. ii. 97). 
 
 In another place directions are given for healing 
 the sores made by surgical cauteries. 
 
 Latinum conversa, Paris, 1544, folio). More authentic figures 
 from a MS. of the ninth or tenth century of great interest for 
 the history of Greek surgery are given by H. Schb'ne in his 
 Apollonius von Kitium, &c. ; that is an illustrated commentary 
 by a later Greek surgeon on the treatise of Hippocrates on joints 
 (4to, Leipzig, 1896, with thirty-one photographic plates). 
 
 1 Dr. Hamilton Hall, of Tunbridge Wells, has sent me an 
 interesting note on the use of this herb in Sussex. It is thought 
 to be of great use in diagnosis. ' The local modus is to scrape 
 the root and put the scrapings (not unlike a dish of horseradish) 
 on the part alleged to be " sprained." If it adhere, there is un- 
 questionable evidence of the sprain; if not, there is no sprain 
 whatever, the patient may suppose. As a matter of fact the 
 scraped- wort poultice does harden very notably on a hot inflamed 
 area, and sticks for a considerable time. Moreover, there is 
 another point. The full story is that there are two comfreys the 
 pink for a man, and the white for a woman ; and the colour of 
 the flower does, in fact, vary.'
 
 ANGLO-SAXON SURGERY 93 
 
 Bleeding by venesection is of course often re- 
 ferred to; sometimes it is directed that a special vein 
 should be opened. Cupping was also used, and 
 the 'cupping glass' is mentioned. But the operation 
 was also performed with a horn. Eather frequent 
 reference is made to scarifications, especially of the 
 legs, as a substitute for venesection (A.-S. L. ii. 4). 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons used several kinds of baths. 
 That most frequently mentioned is the ' stone bath,' 
 that is, one in which the water was heated by putting 
 hot stones into it a method of procuring hot water 
 still used for various rustic purposes at farms and 
 country houses in the present day (A.-S. L. ii. 61, 69). 
 Medicated baths are mentioned, and also the medi- 
 cated vapour bath referred to in my former lecture. 
 Clysters are several times mentioned ; and were 
 administered apparently with a horn (A.-S. L. ii. 261). 
 
 I cannot say more about Anglo-Saxon surgery. 
 The general impression we derive from the books 
 is that it was a mixture of rough empiricism with 
 traditions and some definite documents derived 
 from the surgery of the Greeks. It is not sur- 
 prising that many passages, which appear to come 
 from some ancient author, cannot be identified ; for 
 we know that the literature of the best period of 
 Graeco-Koman surgery, the works of Archigenes, 
 Heliodorus, Leonides, Antyllus (all of whom are 
 more advanced than Celsus, the last and greatest 
 later than Galen), have perished, with the exception 
 of certain fragments preserved in the writings of 
 Oribasius, Aetius, and others. Possibly these works
 
 94 LECTURE II: PART I 
 
 existed in a more perfect state in the tenth century. 
 Possibly also a more minute research than I have 
 been able to make might detect the origin of some 
 of the Anglo-Saxon surgery. But not having been 
 able to consult the most complete texts containing 
 the fragments of these surgical authors, I must leave 
 that point for future inquiry. 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 
 
 There is one element in the Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine, of which I have deferred the considera- 
 tion, but which must now be duly appreciated, that 
 is, the superstitious element ; by which I mean the 
 use of charms, incantations, exorcisms, the wearing 
 of amulets or other magical objects, the employment 
 of ceremonies and religious rites in the gathering or 
 preparation of medicines, and so forth. 
 
 There is no doubt much of this kind in the 
 Anglo-Saxon leechdoms, but it has by no means 
 the preponderance which some have assigned to it. 
 There was not more superstition in the Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine than in the contemporary and earlier 
 medicine of other countries. What there was 
 superstitious and magical in the Anglo-Saxon 
 writers was not peculiar to them, but was in part 
 derived from the literature of a much higher and 
 older civilization than theirs, and what was not 
 thus derived might easily be paralleled in those 
 more learned and cultured writings. In fact, one
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 95 
 
 might go further and say that such superstition as 
 is found hi the Anglo-Saxon medicine has been 
 found in the medicine of most countries and in 
 most ages of the world. With certain exceptions, 
 what we call superstition has generally formed 
 a part of every medical system, and if we look 
 impartially at the various systems of medicine now 
 prevailing in various parts of the globe, we find the 
 same thing ; our own European art of healing is 
 the exception. So little has this been regarded, 
 that it is necessary to emphasize the truth that 
 medicine free from superstition is not the rule, but 
 the exception. 
 
 One great and brilliant exception, indeed, there 
 has been recorded in the history of medicine. The 
 Greek art of healing for several centuries, from the 
 age of Hippocrates to that of Galen at least, or 
 later, was almost entirely free from supernatural 
 beliefs or superstitious practices. We know that 
 the Hippocratic medicine was developed out of 
 a system practised in the temples of Aesculapius, 
 which was essentially an appeal to unseen and 
 supernatural powers, but it quickly threw off these 
 superstitious elements, and gave to the world an 
 example of medicine free from superstition. Thus 
 did Greek medicine remain for many centuries. In 
 the voluminous writings of Galen, though he was in 
 later times quoted as having countenanced these 
 things, there is no recommendation of charms or 
 magical proceedings of any kind. 
 
 Galen, for instance, in the introduction to his
 
 96 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 work on ' Simples,' speaks of a certain Pamphilus, 
 who wrote a book on herbs, that * he was given to 
 old wives' fables, and certain marvellous Egyptian 
 quackeries, mixed up with incantations used in 
 gathering medicinal herbs ; he employed periapts 
 (amulets) and juggleries which were not only useless 
 and outside the art of medicine, but perfectly false ; 
 and to discuss these things would be waste of time l .' 
 The meaning of this is plain enough, and all medical 
 writers of the pure Greek tradition, with their Latin 
 followers, either expressly or tacitly repudiate these 
 magical arts. For instance, Soranus, an eminent 
 writer on medicine and obstetrics, expressly rejects 
 charms and the like ; though he says to women in 
 childbirth charms may be sung, for it soothes them 
 and does no harm. This remains true till about the 
 sixth century, as will be shown hereafter. 
 
 Moreover, I may observe, in anticipation, that 
 when the Greek medical tradition was revived at 
 the school of Salerno in the tenth century and 
 earlier, this school also was entirely free from super- 
 stition. The broad stream of Greek medicine was 
 reduced to a narrow rill, but it was unpolluted 2 . 
 
 1 Galen, De Simplicium Medicamentorum Facultatibus, &c., 
 lib. vi, Prooemium, Kiihn, vol. xi, p. 792. 
 
 2 It is, perhaps, as well to say here that the same is true, 
 broadly speaking, of Arabian medicine, -which was, in fact, a 
 version of the Greek. We do not find, in the Arabian medical 
 classics, charms or magical formulae, or reference to evil spirits 
 as causing disease, whatever may have been the popular beliefs 
 on such subjects. Avicenna and others recognized, indeed, the 
 occult powers of certain natural objects and the significance of
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 97 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that there was 
 no superstitious medicine in Greece or in the Roman 
 empire during these centuries ; on the contrary, it 
 flourished abundantly, though it belonged to popular, 
 not to learned medicine. In Greece, from the 
 earliest times known to us, we find references to it. 
 In Homer we read that Ulysses, when wounded by 
 a wild boar, was cured by the sons of Autolycus 
 with incantations (Odyssey xix. 456), though I believe 
 there is no similar allusion in the Iliad. Similar 
 passages may be found in other Greek poets. The 
 passages of the same purport in the Latin poets, 
 Horace, Martial, and others, have often been quoted 
 and need not be repeated. 
 
 However, the general belief must be noted that 
 most of the superstitious medicine of Eome and 
 even of Greece was derived from the East. Accord- 
 ing to Pliny 1 , magic, the doctrine of the Magi, 
 originated in Persia, and was founded by Zoroaster : 
 and was brought into Greece by Osthanes, who 
 accompanied Xerxes on his war against the Greeks. 
 Notwithstanding this untoward political association, 
 Osthanes induced the Greeks to accept magic not 
 
 their colour and form, and were devoted to alchemy and astro- 
 logy. Still, as the Arabian medicine began to reign in European 
 medical schools, charms and medical superstitions began to dis- 
 appear from the works of regular physicians. Alchemy and 
 astrology, baseless pseudo-sciences as they were, at least pro- 
 fessed to be founded upon physical laws and the properties of 
 natural things, not upon the capricious actions of supernatural 
 beings. 
 
 1 Plinius, Naturalis Historia, lib. xxx, cap. 2, et seq.
 
 98 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 only with zeal, but with a positive mania. Pliny 
 does not say that this was the only source of super- 
 stitious medicine, for there were traces of the same 
 in Italy, and more especially in Gaul. In his own 
 day, he says, magical medicine was celebrated in 
 Britain with such striking ceremonies that it might 
 seem as if the Britons had taught it to the Persians. 
 I quoted in the first lecture Pliny's account of the 
 rites used by the Britons in gathering medicinal 
 plants. But while some such belief in mysterious 
 powers and associations of natural objects might be 
 found in many parts of the world, it still remains 
 true that what the Eomans called magic, they, in 
 succession to the Greeks, derived from the East. 
 Besides the art of the Magi, there were the astro- 
 logy of the Babylonians and Egyptians, the Neo-Pla- 
 tonism of Alexandria with its multitudinous demono- 
 logy, the obscure beliefs of Gnosticism, dealing in 
 charms, spoken, written, or engraved on gems. All 
 these had a share in the vast system of magic or 
 superstitious medicine which gradually pervaded 
 Rome and the Roman empire. The Oriental super- 
 stitions had great success. Several of the emperors, 
 Nero, Trajan, and others, fell under its influence ; 
 though in the end they tried to suppress it. 
 
 Several minor Latin medical writers became in- 
 fected with the superstitious taint, and introduced 
 magical formulae into their writings ; such, for 
 instance, as Serenus Sammonicus, the medical poet, 
 Apuleius Platonicus before mentioned, Sextus 
 Placitus, and above all, Marcellus Empiricus. But
 
 99 
 
 these writers were not in the direct line of suc- 
 cession of Greek medicine. Pliny, though he ex- 
 presses great scepticism or utter disbelief in the 
 doctrines of the Magi, has preserved for us a large 
 number of their rites and formulae. This eclecticism 
 makes his Naturalis Historia a great storehouse of 
 information on these subjects. Though no longer 
 accepted, as it formerly was, for an infallible 
 authority, this ancient encyclopaedia becomes now 
 of ever-increasing importance to us as the history of 
 science is more studied. 
 
 Our concern here is not, of course, with magic or 
 magical medicine in general, which is far too large 
 a subject to be considered now ; but only with the 
 relation of these superstitions to the regular or 
 orthodox art of healing, which means here the 
 Greek classical medicine dating from Hippocrates. 
 But a word must be said in explanation of what we 
 understand by superstitions and what by regular 
 medicine. 
 
 I hope you will not demand of me a definition of 
 the word ' superstition,' for to frame one would be 
 a difficult task. I take the word in the usual sense, 
 and apply it to medical proceedings and methods 
 belonging to the following classes. 
 
 First we have charms and incantations, carmina 
 in Latin, tirooSai in Greek ; that is, in plain English, 
 songs. These forms of words were originally meant 
 to be sung, and very often contain some rime, 
 jingle, or alliteration. The origin of these may 
 perhaps be traced partly to the mere use of pleasing
 
 100 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 sounds and soothing words to lull the pains of 
 disease, as to this day they are used in our lullabies 
 and cradle-songs to lull children to sleep. In old 
 days sick persons of all ages, as well as infants in 
 the cradle, were soothed and comforted by these 
 simple melodies. In our days infants in the 
 cradle only have the benefit of such consoling 
 strains : adults on the sick bed do not demand, 
 and certainly do not receive this sort of consola- 
 tion. 
 
 But this explanation does not carry us very far ; 
 and is plainly not of general application. Indeed, 
 many of our modern nursery rimes are relics of 
 literary forms which had once a much deeper and 
 sometimes a more formidable meaning. For a large 
 number of these magical medical formulae have 
 evidently a definite purpose, that of banishing the 
 evil spirits which were imagined to be the authors 
 of disease. The belief that internal maladies due to 
 no visible cause are the work of evil spirits is 
 traceable in the earliest records of ancient medicine 
 which we possess, and is found among uncivilized 
 races in most parts of the world, as the accounts of 
 travellers and investigators clearly prove l . It is 
 
 1 The earliest known medical writings are those of the 
 Sumerians, the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, now par- 
 tially deciphered from cuneiform inscriptions, dating from the 
 fourth or fifth thousand years before Christ. In these are found 
 formulae of conjurations, and accounts of symbolical rites by 
 which the sick were to be freed from diseases. The physician 
 was a seer, astrologer, and interpreter of dreams. 
 
 In the Babylonian medicine, every disease was personified as
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 101 
 
 evident that we have here one of the most funda- 
 mental, perhaps the most universal conception of 
 the origin of internal diseases. The magical 
 formulae framed with the object of coercing evil 
 spirits were banned by the Christian Church, 
 which substituted for them the formulae of exorcism 
 found in all ancient liturgies, and still, I believe, by 
 no means formally repudiated, though seldom 
 employed. The term exorcista is still applied to 
 one of the lower grades of ordained persons. 
 
 Beside these two origins for charms and the like, 
 there is another factor which is very evident in 
 a great deal of what we call superstitious medicine, 
 namely, a belief in the mysterious powers of natural 
 forces and of natural objects ; especially those of 
 the organic world, plants and animals, but also 
 those of inorganic origin, such as the stars of 
 heaven, springs of water, minerals and gems derived 
 from the earth. It was thought that these 
 mysterious influences could be propitiated and 
 brought to render service to mankind by special 
 prayers and forms of words. These prayers and 
 conjurations are in many cases addressed to the 
 deities supposed to rule over these phenomena of 
 nature, but not always so ; for such beliefs were not 
 necessarily connected with actual polytheism, and 
 were something apart from the formal religion of 
 
 a special demon, who was to be expelled by conjurations or 
 exorcisms. The names of demons were the names of diseases 
 (Von Oefele, in Neuburger und Pagel, Geschichte der Medizin, 
 Vol. i, pp. 60, 71, 72).
 
 102 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 the temples. We might call the belief 'Nature- 
 worship/ but that expression must not be taken too 
 literally. What lies at the bottom of it all is a dim 
 belief in some unseen powers, different from the 
 physical properties of nature, but manifested in the 
 external world ; and that these forces stand in some 
 mysterious relation to the spiritual nature of man, 
 as the physical forces are related to his bodily 
 frame. 
 
 To pursue this vast subject further would be 
 beyond my knowledge and my powers. I must be 
 content with the above superficial glance at what 
 I believe to be the chief sources of what we call 
 medical superstition. The question which concerns 
 us is how these magical elements, banished by the 
 school of Hippocrates from regular medicine, came 
 again to be mingled with it, and to form so impor- 
 tant a part of European medicine for many cen- 
 turies. 
 
 There are two Greek writers more especially to 
 whom the responsibility belongs of introducing into 
 classical medicine the magical elements derived from 
 the East, namely, Alexander of Tralles, so often 
 referred to as a great authority with the Anglo- 
 Saxons, and Aetius of Amida, both of the sixth 
 century. Aetius was probably the older, but 
 Alexander the more influential. To understand his 
 position we must remember that Alexander was an 
 Asiatic Greek, born at Tralles in Lydia, the son of 
 a physician who was fortunate in a brilliant and 
 highly educated family of sons. Several of the
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 103 
 
 brothers were successful professional men, and one, 
 Anthemius, has a place in history as the architect of 
 one of the most memorable buildings in the world, 
 the great Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. 
 This fact not only shows the high intellectual level 
 of the family, but suggests that it was a Christian 
 family, a conclusion confirmed by some allusions in 
 the writings of Alexander himself. Alexander was 
 a highly educated physician trained in the great 
 traditions of Greek medicine, which was still flour- 
 ishing and full of resources, though it had ceased 
 to produce any original works, and showed unmis- 
 takable signs of decadence. How did he then, a 
 learned and highly gifted man, fall away from the 
 truth, as we should say, and embrace these super- 
 stitious errors? It is clear that however much 
 a Hippocratic physician might try to preserve the 
 medical tradition in its purity, he must be greatly 
 influenced by his surroundings. The society in 
 which Alexander lived, from the lowest to the 
 highest classes, believed implicitly in Oriental magic 
 and other superstitions. In medical matters this 
 belief gave rise to a popular medicine dealing with 
 what Alexander calls fao-iicd, physical or natural 
 remedies, as distinct from the learned remedies of 
 the regular physicians. To this popular medicine, 
 Alexander, though he generally employed regular 
 and approved remedies, made large concessions, and 
 excused himself for his compliance in the following 
 way. There are many patients, he says, who will 
 not submit to regular medicinal or dietetic treat-
 
 104 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 ment, and hence the physician is obliged to have 
 recourse to ' physical ' remedies, for a good physician 
 should be ready to help his patient by any kind 
 of means. But he will only recommend such 
 measures as have been approved by long experience. 
 Alexander defends the use of certain charms by 
 saying that he had proved by experience their 
 efficacy in diseases. Such remedies were, however, 
 only to be used when ordinary measures failed, and 
 were not to be given to any chance patient, but only 
 to those who had faith and could keep a secret 
 (a suspicious precaution). But it would be an act 
 of inhumanity to omit the use of what did so much 
 good. Alexander further excuses himself by 
 quoting a passage from a work of Galen (of which 
 the original is now lost), to show that the master 
 himself did not deny the efficacy of magical 
 remedies : 
 
 'The divine Galen, who had formerly believed 
 charms (f7ra>8ai) to be of no value, nevertheless, 
 after a long time and great experience, found that 
 they were extremely powerful. Hear then what 
 he says in his treatise On Medical Treatment in 
 Homer.' 
 
 These are the words of Galen : 
 
 ' Some think, as I myself did for a long time, 
 that charms are no better than old wives' fables, 
 but I have become convinced in the course of 
 time, and by manifest evidence, that there is 
 power in them ; for I have had experience of their 
 utility to those stung by scorpions, and not less 
 in the case of bones swallowed and sticking in 
 the throat, which were at once expectorated by
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 105 
 
 the help of a charm. There are many which are 
 excellent for particular cases ; and the charms 
 attain their end.' 
 
 These words may have been written by Galen, 
 but it is to be observed that the work from which 
 they are ostensibly taken, On Medical Treatment in 
 Homer, is quite unknown except in this reference, 
 and seems to have perished, so that Alexander's 
 quotation cannot be verified. If Galen really wrote 
 thus, it must have been in his old age, and this 
 tardy recantation can hardly weigh against the 
 explicit disavowal found in other places, and the 
 entire absence of any prescription of charms in his 
 other writings. 
 
 However, it was enough for Alexander, who pro- 
 ceeds in the same passage to say that the most 
 powerful remedy against stone in the kidneys is 
 a ring made of Cyprian copper, on which should be 
 engraved the image of a lion, the moon, and a star ; 
 and which should be worn on the little finger or 
 the medicinal (i.e. the ring) finger! 
 
 Alexander's writings indeed contain a large 
 number of magical formulae and rites, most of which 
 are probably of Oriental origin, but some were picked 
 up during his travels in Italy and elsewhere and 
 some contain Christian allusions. It seems desirable 
 to give some examples of the superstitious receipts 
 found in this classical Greek writer, to show what 
 kind of material was found in the sources from 
 which the Anglo-Saxons derived much of their 
 medical lore.
 
 106 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 Alexander recommends that medicinal herbs 
 should be gathered with prayers and magical incanta- 
 tions, and special ceremonial rites at special times 
 determined by the position of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 Certain parts of animals or plants had wondrous 
 powers if hung round the neck of the patient, or 
 applied to the affected part of the body. The same 
 effect had sacred words, or even a verse of Homer, 
 written on gold or vellum and worn upon the body 
 as an amulet. Along with these went many other 
 beliefs and practices which we call superstitions. 
 
 As examples I will quote one or two of Alexan- 
 der's prescriptions for gout. 
 
 The tendons from the legs and claws of a vulture 
 are to be applied to the ankles of the patient 
 affected with gout, taking care that the right foot 
 of the bird is applied to the right foot of the man, 
 and the left to the left. 
 
 Again, the small bones from the foot of a hare, 
 hung round the patient's neck, greatly alleviate 
 the pains in the joints ; but the hare must not be 
 killed. 
 
 Some recommend writing the following verse of 
 Homer on a gold leaf while the moon is in the sign 
 of Libra still better if she is in the sign of Leo : 
 
 8' a.yopr\, vrrb vTwayj^To yata. 
 
 (Iliad, ii. 95.) 
 
 'The assembly was in confusion, and the earth 
 underneath groaned.' 
 
 Another charm was to write on a gold leaf, when 
 the moon is waning, the following words, and tie it
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 107 
 
 up, with the tendons of a crane, in a packet which 
 the patient was to wear round his ankle : 
 
 l Meij threu, moe, phor, teux, za, zon, the, lu, chri, ge, 
 ze, on, as the sun is kept stable in these words, and 
 is renewed every day, so make this organ firm as it 
 was before, now, now, quickly, quickly ! ' &C. 1 
 
 Another still more elaborate piece of magic to 
 cure the gout was as follows : 
 
 ' Dig round the sacred herb Hyoscyamus before 
 sunset with the thumb and the medical (or third) 
 finger not touching the root, and address it in 
 a solemn invocation "Sacred herb, I bid thee, 
 I bid thee, to-morrow I summon thee to the house 
 of my patient to stop the rheum of his feet, I con- 
 jure thee by the great name of Jaoth, Sabaoth, the 
 God who made the earth solid and the sea to stand 
 still, &c. Take into thyself the spirit and power of 
 the earth, thy mother, and dry up the rheum of this 
 man or this woman.' " 
 
 The next morning the herb was to be dug up 
 before sunrise with the bone of a dead animal, 
 taken in the hand and conjured with the sacred 
 names Jaoth, Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloi, sprinkled with 
 salt, and then, with another charm, hung round the 
 gouty patient's neck 2 . 
 
 These quotations are fair samples of the magical 
 medicine of Alexander ; but it must not be supposed 
 that he always prescribed remedies of this kind for 
 gout or for other diseases. On the contrary, the 
 
 1 Helm (Incantamenta magica Graeca Latina, 1892, p. 535) 
 explains these monosyllables as representing the twelve signs of 
 the Zodiac; but as there are thirteen words one must be super- 
 fluous. 
 
 2 Alex. Trallianus, ed. Puschmann, Vol. ii, p. 584.
 
 108 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 greater part of his work is taken up with the 
 ordinary medical treatment; and his recommenda- 
 tions are often very sensible and useful. But we 
 see that the door was thus opened to the wildest 
 fancies and grossest superstitions, such as we find 
 in the Greek successors of Alexander, and still 
 more in their Latin contemporaries. One Latin 
 writer, Marcellus Empiricus, earlier than Alexander, 
 especially abounds in such charms ; and it was 
 from his writings, as well as those of the later 
 Greek and Latin medical authors, that the Anglo- 
 Saxons borrowed a good deal of their magical 
 medicine. 
 
 I know that it will naturally be asked, whether 
 a great part of these Saxon charms and medical 
 rites are not derived from Teutonic or Celtic medi- 
 cal folklore. The answer to this question is diffi- 
 cult for more reasons than one. It is not easy 
 from the form or contents of a charm to know 
 whether it originated in folklore or in borrowed 
 learning. A great deal of so-called ' folk-medicine ' 
 is old-fashioned regular medicine which has sunk 
 down to the level of the unlearned, and has some- 
 times put on a rustic dress. It is not all so, of course, 
 but many charms and the like collected by students 
 of folklore and called provincial may be traced to 
 Oriental, Greek, or Latin sources. We know that 
 the northern nations had ' runes ' or charms con- 
 cerning herbs, but none of the charms in the Leech 
 Books can be definitely traced to such a source, 
 though there is at least one written in runic
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 109 
 
 characters. There is also a very remarkable poem 
 concerning herbs in which Woden is introduced, 
 though it contains also Christian allusions ; but 
 this can hardly be called a charm. There are some 
 other curious charms in verse which may be very 
 ancient. The witchcraft of the northern peoples is 
 also well known, but this finds a place in the Leech 
 Books only as an evil sorcery against which charms 
 are given ; as there are also against elves, against 
 elf-disease, and for an ' elfshot,' that is, bewitched 
 animal. There is also a remedy (not a charm), 
 against a ' dwarf,' that is, a malignant spirit 1 . Also 
 we have a charm : 'Against every evil rune-lay, and 
 one full of elvish tricks, write this writing in Greek 
 letters "alpha, omega, Jesum Beronike (St. Ve- 
 ronica)," ' &c. 
 
 With regard to Celtic popular medicine there is 
 a charm containing unknown words which the 
 editor identifies as Irish, and another described as 
 Scottish (i.e. Gaelic or Irish), but which the editor 
 says appears to belong to no known language (A.-S. L. 
 
 ii. ii, US)- 
 
 From these quotations we see that anything in 
 the nature of a rune-lay was purposely omitted as 
 being of heathen origin, and hence proscribed by 
 the Church. The whole spirit of the Leech Books 
 generally is Christian, and thus opposed to the old 
 pagan charms and witchcraft. The absence of 
 charms avowedly derived from the old folklore is 
 
 1 A.-S. L. i. 139, 365, 369. See also Mr. Cockayne's Introduc- 
 tion, p. xlvii.
 
 110 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 thus easily explained. If there were any such their 
 origin was ignored. 
 
 This brings us to the very important question 
 which we must consider for a moment, viz. the 
 attitude of the Church with respect to magic and 
 superstitious medicine generally. 
 
 Of course this attitude was one of hostility. All 
 this superstitious medicine was so closely connected 
 with pagan idolatry, native, classical, or Oriental, 
 that the Church could not sanction it ; it was 
 thought to be the work of demons and evil spirits. 
 But at the same time the reality and power of these 
 charms and rites were not questioned. These evil 
 powers had to be overcome by the power of the 
 true God. The charms were met by counter- 
 charms. Invocations of Christ and the saints were 
 substituted for the invocations of spirits and the 
 occult powers of nature. Thus it must be said that 
 in their condemnation of the evil powers the clergy 
 maintained an intellectual atmosphere which was 
 eminently favourable to superstition and credulity. 
 This is perhaps the explanation of their want of 
 success in dealing with magic. In the books of 
 penalties for spiritual offences, such as the Paeni- 
 tentiale of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 which is one of the earliest, penalties are imposed 
 upon those who had to do with witchcraft, heathen 
 rites, worship of trees, and other natural objects, 
 and so forth. In the translations of the Latin 
 books of herbs already spoken of, the invocations 
 to the earth, to herbs and the like, were carefully 

 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 111 
 
 omitted, or in some instances erased in the MSS., 
 Christian prayers and benedictions being sometimes 
 substituted. In gathering medicinal herbs, prayers 
 and masses were to be said in place of the old 
 heathen formulae. 
 
 For instance, in the Latin MSS. of the Herbarium 
 of Apuleius there are, as before mentioned, some- 
 times found prayers addressed to the earth, to all 
 herbs, and to some special herbs. These are not 
 strictly a part of the treatise of Apuleius, but often 
 prefixed to it, and are of course omitted by the 
 Anglo-Saxon translators. A formula which seems 
 to take its place in some degree is a 'Benedictio 
 Herbarum' found in another place. It is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 ' Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui ab initio mundi 
 omnia instituisti et creasti tarn arborum generibus 
 quam herbarum seminibus quibus etiam benedic- 
 tione tua benedicendo sanxisti eadem nunc benedic- 
 tione olera aliosque fructus sanctificare ac benedicere 
 digneris ut sumentibus ex eis sanitatem conferant 
 mentis et corporis,' &c. (A.-S. L. iii. 79). 
 
 We find also prayers called 'Benedictio potus' and 
 ' Benedictio unguenti,' intended to accompany the 
 use of medicines and salves. But these are rather 
 religious than medical, and can hardly be called 
 charms. Mr. Cockayne says there are similar 
 prayers in the Durham Ritual. 
 
 In such ways did the Church seek to wean the 
 people from the use of heathen magic in medicine, 
 though apparently with little success. For all
 
 112 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 through the middle and later ages, these super- 
 stitions were very general, and are by no means 
 extinct even at the present day. 
 
 As a specimen of the manner in which this 
 subject was treated by the highest minds among 
 the ecclesiastics I will quote from the noble sermon 
 of St. Eligius, or Eloy, Bishop of Noyon, to which 
 I referred in a former lecture. Though the bishop 
 was not an Anglo-Saxon, he lived at a time which 
 comes within our period, namely, in the seventh 
 century. 
 
 'Before all things I declare and testify to you 
 that you shall observe none of the impious customs 
 of the pagans, neither sorcerers, nor diviners, nor 
 soothsayers, nor enchanters, nor must you presume 
 for any cause, or for any sickness, to consult or 
 inquire of them ; for he who commits this sin loses 
 unavoidably the grace of baptism. In like manner 
 pay no attention to auguries and sneezings ; and 
 when you are on a journey pay no attention to the 
 singing of certain little birds. But whether you 
 are setting out on a journey, or beginning any other 
 work, cross yourself in the name of Christ, and say 
 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer with faith and 
 devotion, and then the enemy can do you no 
 harm. . . . Let no Christian place lights at the 
 temples, or the stones, or at fountains, or at trees, 
 ... or at places where three ways meet, or pre- 
 sume to make vows. Let none presume to hang 
 amulets on the neck of man or beast ; even though 
 they l)e made l>y the clergy, and called holy things, and 
 contain the words of Scripture ; for they are fraught, 
 not with the remedy of Christ, but with the poison 
 of the Devil. Let no one presume to make lustra- 
 tions, nor to enchant herbs, nor to make flocks pass
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS MEDICINE 113 
 
 through a hollow tree, or an aperture in the earth ; 
 for by so doing he seems to consecrate them to the 
 devil. 
 
 1 Moreover, as often as any sickness occurs, do 
 not seek enchanters, nor diviners, nor sorcerers, nor 
 soothsayers, or make devilish amulets at fountains 
 or trees, or cross-roads ; but let him who is sick 
 trust only to the mercy of God, and receive the 
 sacrament of the body and blood of Christ with 
 faith and devotion ; and faithfully seek consecrated 
 oil from the church, wherewith he may anoint his 
 body in the name of Christ, and according to the 
 Apostle, the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and 
 the Lord shall raise him up' (Maitland, The Dark 
 Ages, London, 1841, p. 150). 
 
 We can hardly approve, indeed the medical 
 profession cannot be expected to approve, of so 
 literal an interpretation of the Epistle of St. James, 
 as to ignore the aid of secular medicine for the sick. 
 But apart from this, nothing could be better than 
 the tone of these injunctions. It must have re- 
 quired some independence of mind to forbid the 
 use of Christian amulets. The superstitions about 
 hollow trees and holes in the earth or in stones 
 were firmly believed in parts of the West of England 
 during the last century, and probably are so to-day'. 
 It would have been well if all ecclesiastical authorities 
 had been as enlightened and thorough-going as the 
 good Bishop of Noyon. 
 
 1 See Popular Romances of the West of England, or Drolls, 
 Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall, by Robert Hunt, 
 London, 1871, 2nd ed., p. 415.
 
 114 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHARMS 
 
 The number of charms in the Anglo-Saxon leech 
 books taken together is considerable, but they 
 compose only a small portion of each book. In the 
 Leech Book of Bald, of which the two authentic 
 books contain about 160 chapters, some with many 
 paragraphs, including several hundred leechdoms, 
 there are only thirty formulae which can be called 
 ' Charms.' Of these, seventeen are distinctly 
 Christian, while four contain Latin or unknown 
 words, not Christian. 
 
 In the so-called Book III (not an integral part of 
 the work), which contains seventy-three chapters, 
 some long, there are twenty-three charms, of which 
 twelve are Christian. The larger proportion is 
 noteworthy. In other collections of leechdoms, the 
 proportion is somewhat larger ; but, on the whole, 
 as will be seen, the magical element, to which 
 much importance has been attached, forms really 
 only a very small part of Anglo-Saxon medical 
 literature. 
 
 As it seems necessary to adopt some kind of 
 classification, I arrange the Anglo-Saxon charms 
 under the following heads : 
 
 I. Prayers, invocations, or other verbal formulae 
 addressed to the herbs ; and special observances, 
 used when gathering them or other natural 
 remedies. 
 
 II. Prayers and mystical words repeated over 
 the' patient, or written and applied to some part
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHARMS 115 
 
 of his body as an amulet, with or without material 
 remedies. Such words are often in a foreign tongue, 
 as Latin among those who do not speak it ; Greek 
 or Hebrew among the Latins. They are sometimes 
 in an unknown and unintelligible language ; like 
 those called by the Greeks 'E^ea-ta ypd^ara, or 
 Ephesian words, the meaning of which phrase it 
 would take too long to explain. But they are some- 
 times in the vernacular \ 
 
 III. Direct conjurations or exorcisms addressed 
 to diseases as if they were evil spirits. 
 
 IV. Narrative charms, that is, anecdotes relating 
 to sacred or legendary personages, who suffered or 
 did something analogous to what the patient is 
 suffering from. 
 
 V. Material magic ; that is, the attribution of 
 magical powers to certain objects, such as plants 
 or parts of animals, stones and engraved gems ; 
 none of these objects being taken or used medi- 
 cinally, but applied to some part of the patient's 
 body, as amulets or periapts. 
 
 VI. Transference of disease by a verbal formula, 
 or a ceremony, to some animal or material object, or 
 in some way to the outside world. 
 
 Examples of most of these have been given from 
 Alexander Trallianus. I now give some eorrespond- 
 ing r passages from the Anglo-Saxon books. 
 
 1 See Helm's Incantamenta Magica Graeca Latina, Leipzig, 1892, 
 p. 525.
 
 116 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 I. CHARMS AND CEREMONIES EMPLOYED IN 
 GATHERING MEDICINAL HERBS, &c. 
 
 * I. It has been observed that prayers or invo- 
 cations addressed to herbs and natural objects are 
 for the most part omitted or avoided by the Anglo- 
 Saxons, when found in heathen authors. It is 
 strange, however, that the Saxons sometimes added 
 words of this kind. For instance, in the Herbarium 
 Apukii is a statement that Artemisia (mugwort) 
 carried in the hands prevents a traveller from 
 becoming tired ' (Herbarium Apuleii, A.-S. L. i. 103). 
 
 In the Leech Book of Bald we find the following 
 leechdom : 
 
 ' For much travelling overland, lest a man tire: 
 Let him take mugwort in his hand or put it in his 
 shoe lest he should weary. And when he will pluck 
 it before sunrise, let him say first these words 
 " Tollam te Artemisia ne lassus sim in via," sign it 
 (i. e. with the sign of the Cross) when thou pullest 
 it up ' (A.-S. L. ii. 155). 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons employed many sacred words 
 and ceremonies in gathering herbs. These, in the 
 books we have, are mostly Christian, and seem to 
 have been substituted for the heathen charms, 
 indigenous or classical, formerly used. 
 
 For instance : 
 
 1 If the worm or the bleeding fig (haemorrhoid) 
 turn downwards, delve round a plant of celandine 
 root and take it with thy two hands turned upwards, 
 and sing over it nine Pater Nosters, and at the ninth, 
 at " Deliver us from evil," snap it up, and take from
 
 CHARMS IN GATHERING HERBS 117 
 
 that plant and from others that may be there a little 
 cupful (of juice) and let the man drink it ; and let 
 one rub him at a warm fire ; it will soon be well 
 with him ' (A.-S. L. iii. 39). 
 
 * For the delirious : 
 
 ' Bishopwort, lupin, bonewort, everfern (polypody), 
 githrife (corncockle, gith ?) elecampane. When day 
 and night divide, then sing thou in the Church 
 litanies, that is, the names of the hallows (saints) 
 and the Pater Noster. With the song go thou near 
 the worts, and go thrice about them, and when thou 
 takest them go again to church with the same song, 
 and sing twelve masses over them, and over all the 
 drinks which belong to the disease in honour of the 
 twelve apostles ' (A.-S. L. ii. 139). 
 
 ' A drink for " Theor " disease l ; delve about sour 
 ompre (sorrel dock), sing thrice the Pater N ester, 
 jerk it up; then, while thou sayest sed libera nos 
 a ma/o, take five slices of it and seven peppercorns, 
 bray them together, and while thou be working it, 
 sing twelve times the psalm Miserere mei Deus and 
 Gloria in excelsis Deo and the Pater Noster, and 
 then pour it all over with wine ; when day and night 
 divide, then drink the dose and wrap thyself up 
 warm' (A.-S. L. ii. 117). 
 
 It is evident that this use of Latin prayers implies 
 that the leech who gathered the worts was a clerical 
 person. 
 
 The ritual in the following leechdom is very 
 elaborate, and recalls the ceremonies prescribed by 
 Alexander Trallianus in gathering Hyoscyamus. It 
 is for ' elf disease,' that is, for a person bewitched 
 by elves. 
 
 * Go on Thursday evening when the sun is set where 
 
 1 See note on p. 48.
 
 118 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 thou knowest that Helenium stands ; then sing the 
 Benedicite and Pater Noster and a litany, and stick thy 
 knife into the wort; make it stick fast and go away; 
 go again when day and night divide; at the same 
 time go first to church and cross thyself, and com- 
 mend thyself to God. Then go in silence, and 
 though anything of an awful nature, or a man meet 
 thee, say not to him any word ere thou come to the 
 wort which thou. didst mark the evening before. 
 Then sing the Benedicite and the Pater Noster, and 
 a litany ; delve up the wort, let the knife stick in it. 
 Go again as quick as thou canst to church and lay 
 it under the altar with the knife. Let it lie till the 
 sun be up ; wash it afterwards, and make into a drink 
 with bishopwort and lichen off a crucifix ; boil in 
 milk thrice, thrice pour holy water upon it and sing 
 the Pater Noster, the Credo, and the Gloria in 
 excelsis, and sing upon it a litany, and mark a cross 
 with a sword round it on three sides ; and after that 
 let the man drink the wort ; soon will it be well 
 with him ' (A.-S. L. ii. 347). 
 
 In the following leechdom pure water is made 
 medicinal by prayers : 
 
 ' If wens (? spasms) pain a man at the heart, let 
 a maiden go to a spring which runs due east, and 
 ladle up a cupful, moving the cup with the stream, 
 and sing over it the Creed and Pater Noster, and 
 then pour it into another vessel and ladle up some 
 more, so as to have three cups full. Do so for nine 
 days ; soon will it be well with the man ' (A.-S. L. 
 iii. 75)- 
 
 It is curious that no directions are given for the 
 patient to drink the water. This observance may 
 have been a relic of the old German and Northern 
 worship of springs, which the clergy, not being able 
 to abolish, sanctified with Christian rites. A similar
 
 CHARMS IN GATHERING HERBS 119 
 
 superstition exists, or existed lately, in Cornwall as 
 to whooping cough l . 
 
 The use of natural remedies and of sacred objects 
 is sometimes curiously combined. For instance : 
 
 ' Against any poison, put in holy water betony 
 and the small atterlothe, drink the water, and eat 
 the worts.' 
 
 ' If an adder strike a man, or for whatever (injury) 
 cometh of shots, wash the black snail in holy water ; 
 give him to drink V 
 
 II. CHARMS IN THE MORE ORDINARY SENSE, THAT IS, 
 MYSTICAL WORDS PRONOUNCED OR WRITTEN DOWN 
 
 Many of these verbal charms in the Anglo-Saxon 
 books are derived from classical or from biblical 
 sources, being generally in Latin, and can hardly be 
 understood without reference to these. 
 
 For instance, in many of the Latin charms the 
 essential thing was to name the sick man and his 
 father, as in a tradition preserved by Pliny that the 
 root of nettle was a cure for ague ; but the names 
 of the sick man and his parents must be pronounced 
 when it was pulled up 3 . 
 
 1 See R. Hunt's Popular Romances, $c., of the West of England, 
 2nd ed., 1871, p. 416. 
 
 2 Holy water was largely used in the preparation of medicines ; 
 and even this superstition has survived into modern times. 
 Mr. Hunt, in the work on Cornish superstitions already referred 
 to, says that the water used for baptism is regarded as 'holy 
 water ' and much prized. Fonts in country churches used to be 
 locked to prevent people from stealing the water left after a 
 christening, which was wanted to undo spells, i.e. against witch- 
 craft (op. cit., p. 413). 
 
 3 Plinii Naturalis Historia, xxii. cap. 16.
 
 120 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 Similar forms of words are found in Marcellus 
 Empiricus, and other Latin authors. 
 
 This hint will help us to understand some charms 
 which seem at first sight quite unintelligible ; for 
 instance, the following, which is a curious medley of 
 Latin and English : 
 
 ' Sing this for toothache after the sun hath gone 
 down : " Caio laio quaque voaque ofer saeloficia 
 sleah manna wyrm." Then name the man and his 
 father, then say : " Lilumenne," it acheth beyond 
 everything ; when it lieth low it cooleth ; when on 
 earth it burneth hottest ; finit. Amen.' (A.-S. L. 
 iii. 8, 9.) 
 
 The first two words are for Gaio Seio. Gaius Seius 
 was used in Latin charms for * a certain person,' 
 6 SfTva, as we should say A or B. Gaius is the 
 fictitious name often used in Koman law books, as 
 John Eoe and others used to be in old English 
 law. The feminine Gaia seia occurs in a charm in 
 Marcellus Empiricus (cap. xxi. 3) 1 . Probably it had 
 become a mere jingle. 
 
 These words look absolutely unmeaning, and are 
 anyhow not translateable ; but may be corrupt 
 forms of Latin and Greek, which in the original, 
 were not without meaning. To explain * wyrm ' we 
 should remember that toothache was generally 
 attributed to a worm. 
 
 Another class of charms have their origin in 
 misused words from the scriptures or apocryphal 
 Christian writings, the names of the four Evangelists 
 being often used. 
 
 1 See Helm's Incantamenta magica, p. 480.
 
 CHARMS IN WORDS 121 
 
 For instance, in the Leech Book of Bald we 
 have : 
 
 ' A drink against spring diseases (i. e, Ague), Fever- 
 fue, the herb ram's gall (Menyanthes) fennel, way- 
 broad. Let a man sing many masses over the worts, 
 wet them with ale, put holy water on them, boil very 
 thoroughly, let the sick man drink a large cupful 
 as hot as he may, before the disorder be upon him ; 
 name the four Gospellers and a charm and a prayer. 
 Matheus + + Marcus + + Lucas + + Johannes + + 
 intercedite pro me. Tiecon, Leleloth patron, adiuro vos. ' 
 
 Again, a godly prayer. 'In nomine domini sit 
 benedictum Berenice Beronicen, et habet in vesti- 
 mento et in femore suo scriptum rex regum et 
 dominus dominantium ' (Rev. xix. 16 (Vulgate)). 
 
 Again, a godly prayer. ' In nomine sit benedictum ; 
 DEEKETH HAND THIN DEERETH HAND THIN "Thine 
 hand vexeth, thine hand vexeth " ' (A.~S. L. ii. 141). 
 
 The first part of this charm needs no explanation, 
 but it is curious to find, along with the four Evan- 
 gelists, such barbarous names as Tiecon, Leleloth. 
 Mr. Cockayne explains that Leleloth is the name 
 of an Arabian idol. The other is unexplained but 
 evidently they are not Christian names, and point 
 to an Oriental origin for the charm. 
 
 In the second godly prayer, the word Berenice 
 means St. Veronica, and refers to the legend of the 
 sacred handkerchief which received the miraculous 
 picture of Christ. This is a favourite name in 
 charms. 
 
 In the third prayer the English words given in 
 capitals seem to have been in the original written 
 in Runic characters and are perhaps derived from 
 some old ' Rune-lay.' So that in this one leech- 
 
 PAYNE JJ
 
 122 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 dom we have an extraordinary mixture of scrip- 
 tural names, heathen mythology and old Teutonic 
 folk-lore l . 
 
 The following also comes from the Leech Book of 
 Bald:- 
 
 'For stroke of viper, remove from thine ears 
 the wax, and smear around therewith, and say 
 thrice the prayer of St. John : 
 
 Dominus meus et pater et films et spiritus sanctus, 
 cui omnia subiecta sunt : cui omnis potestas sub- 
 iecta est et metuit et expavescit ; et draco fugit, et 
 silet vipera, et rubeta ilia quae dicitur rana quieta 
 torpescit, et scorpius extinguitur,' &,c. 2 (A.-S.L.ii. 113). 
 
 Charms in an unknown tongue. Some of the words 
 used in charms are, as has been said, quite unin- 
 telligible, e. g. : 
 
 ' In case a man or a beast drink a worm, sing the 
 lay hereinafter written in the right ear if it be of 
 male kind ; sing it in the left ear if it be of female 
 kind : 
 
 Gonomil, orgomil, marbumil, marbsai, ramum, tofeth, 
 tengo, docuillo, limn, &c.' 
 
 (I do not quote the whole, as such words convey 
 
 1 Charms containing the names of the four Evangelists were 
 commonly used in the Middle Ages and up to the eighteenth 
 century, if not at the present day. I have lately come across an 
 instance in a charm, one of many, written out and preserved 
 about the year 1713 by a doctor's apprentice in Berkshire, one 
 William Savory, who learned them from his master or from 
 a neighbouring doctor. It recites also the names of three wise 
 men of the East, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, favourite 
 personages in charms, and other holy names (see St. Thomas's 
 Hospital Gazette, vol. xiii, p. 89, May 1903). 
 
 8 Mr. Cockayne says that this prayer comes from the legendary 
 ' Assumptio Sancti lohannis apostoli.'
 
 CHARMS IN WORDS 123 
 
 no sense to the reader). Dr. Bradley informs me 
 that the words are corrupt Irish but are not con- 
 secutively intelligible (A.-S. L. iii. n). 
 
 The following are from the Leech Book of 
 Bald : Some of these words are also Irish. 
 
 ' To stanch blood : some write this, aegryn, thon, 
 struth, fola, aergrenn tart, struih on, tria, &c.' (about 
 thirty unintelligible words are given) (A.-S. L. ii. 55). 
 These words, or something like them, occur in 
 several charms. 
 
 ' For flying venom and every venomous swelling 
 [that is for epidemic diseases and for the bubonic 
 plague]. 
 
 ' On a Friday churn butter which has been milked 
 from a neat or hind all of one colour ; and let it not 
 be mingled with water. Sing over it nine times 
 a litany, and nine times the Pater Noster, and nine 
 times this incantation : 
 
 l Acrae, aercrae, aernem, nadre, aercuna, Twl, aernem 
 aeradspice,' &c. 
 
 Some of the words here look like corrupted Latin, 
 but cannot be made out. Mr. Cockayne says this 
 charm is said in the table of contents to be Scottish, 
 that is Gaelic or Irish, but the words themselves 
 belong to no known language. 
 
 The leechdom goes on : 
 
 ' Some teach us against bite of adder to speak one 
 word, that is, " Faul" ; it may not hurt him.' 
 
 'Against bite of snake, if the man procures and 
 eats rind which cometh out of Paradise, no venom 
 will damage him. Then said he that wrote this 
 book that the rind was hard to be gotten.' 
 
 This is, I think, the only touch of humour in the 
 Leech Book.
 
 124 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 It should be observed that charms in an unknown 
 tongue were much in use among the ancients. I 
 have given some examples from Alexander Trallianus ; 
 but they are still more numerous in Marcellus Em- 
 piricus 1 . The following are examples of these 
 ' Ephesian words ' : 
 
 A charm against toothache was to repeat the 
 words Argidam, margidam, sturgidam seven times 
 on a Tuesday or Thursday when the moon was 
 waning. 
 
 For stomach-ache, to press the left thumb upon 
 the stomach and repeat adam bedam alam betar 
 alam botum. Another charm consisted in the 
 words : 
 
 Alabanda Alabandi alambo, with certain ceremonies. 
 
 There are a number of similar formulae, but 
 I have not found any identical with the strange 
 words used in the Anglo-Saxon charms. 
 
 One of the most extraordinary examples of the 
 employment of sacred rites in the administration 
 of medicines is the use made of ecclesiastical 
 furniture, such as sacramental vessels and even 
 church bells. This is an example from the Leech 
 Book of Bald : 
 
 1 Against fever disease: A man shall write this 
 upon the sacramental paten, and wash it off into 
 the drink with holy water. 
 
 + + +^1+ + + + +CD+ + + + + + + + + 
 and sing over it. " In principio erat verbum, &c." 
 (John i. i). Then wash the writing with holy water 
 
 1 Helm's Incantamenta magica, p. 529.
 
 EXORCISM OF DISEASES 125 
 
 off the dish into the drink, then sing the Credo, 
 and the Pater Noster, and this lay : Beati Immacu- 
 lati, the psalm (Ps. cxix) with the twelve prayer 
 psalms.' 
 
 (Then follows a peculiar charm which I shall 
 give later.) 'And let each of the two men (the 
 leech and the patient) sip thrice of the water' 
 (A.-S. L. ii. 137). 
 
 In the same place we find the following : 
 
 ' A drink -for a fiend-sick man (i. e. a demoniac or 
 lunatic) when a devil possesses the man or affects 
 him from within with disease, to be drunk out of 
 a church bell. 
 
 ' Take githrife, yarrow, betony (and several other 
 worts); work up the drink with clear ale, sing 
 seven masses over the worts, add garlic and holy 
 water, and drip the drink into every drink that 
 he shall afterwards drink ; and then let him drink 
 it out of a church bell, and let the mass priest sing 
 this over him after he has drunk it : " Domine sancte 
 pater omnipotens, &c." : 
 
 III. EXORCISM OF DISEASES 
 
 Another very curious class of charms is that in 
 which the disease is conjured to depart, sometimes 
 with threats, as if it were an evil spirit. Many 
 such are among the Latin charms given by Mar- 
 cellus Empiricus, Pliny, and other Latin writers. 
 The belief in diseases being caused by evil spirits 
 has already been touched upon. 
 
 I will first give instances from the Latin writers. 
 
 Marcellus Empiricus gives for the cure of gout
 
 126 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 what he calls carmen idioticum, l fuge, fuge, podagra 
 de pedibus meis et omnibus membris meis ! .' 
 
 Carmen idioticum means, of course, a charm used 
 by laymen, a popular charm ; but a modern reader 
 might excusably take it in a different sense. 
 
 Heim gives from Plinius Valerianus a charm 
 against quartan ague, in which the disease is 
 threatened with the mighty name of Solomon. 
 
 ' Recede ab illo Gaio Seio 2 ; Solomon te sequitur V 
 
 With this may be compared the following Anglo- 
 Saxon leechdom : 
 
 1 Against a strange (or unnatural) swelling, sing upon 
 thy leech finger (third finger) a paternoster, and 
 draw a line about the sore and say : Fuge diabolus, 
 Christus te sequitur ; quando natus est Christus, fugit 
 dolor; and afterwards say another paternoster, and 
 fuge diabolus 4 ' (A.-S. L. i. 394). 
 
 Several exorcisms of fevers and agues occur, as in 
 the following: 
 
 ' Contra frigora omnibus horis scribis in carta et 
 cum licio ligas ad collum egroti hora deficiente : 
 
 1 Marcellus de Medicamentis, cap. xxxvi. 70, p. 379, ed. 
 Helmreich. 
 
 2 For an explanation of the words ' Gaio Seio ' see above. 
 8 Heim, op. cit., p. 479. 
 
 4 The word translated ' strange ' is ' uncuthum,' literally ' un- 
 known,' the meaning of which does not correspond to the modern 
 word ' uncouth,' but means weird or supernatural. In the form 
 ' unketh ' it occurs in this sense in old English. This interpreta- 
 tion is supported by a superstition prevalent among the Irish 
 peasantry that sudden swellings on the hands or exposed parts 
 are caused by the touch of the hand of a fairy. In the Saxon 
 charm there is evidently an allusion to something of this kind.
 
 EXORCISM OF DISEASES 127 
 
 ' In nomine domini crucifix! sub Pontio Pilato, per 
 signum crucis Xti, fugite febres, seu frigora coti- 
 diana, seu tertiana vel nocturna [? quartana] a servo 
 Dei N. Septingenta XIV milia angelo(rum) per- 
 sequentur nos (? vos) + Eugenius, Stephanus, 
 Protacius, Sambucius, Dionisius, Chesilius, et Quiria- 
 cus. Ista nomina scribe et super se portet qui 
 patitur.' 
 
 ' Against chills at all hours of the day write on 
 a paper and bind with a cord on the neck of the 
 patient in the evening the following : 
 
 " In the name of our Lord, crucified under Pontius 
 Pilate, by the sign of the cross of Christ. Fevers 
 or quotidian chills, or tertian, or quartan, depart 
 from the servant of God N. Seven hundred and 
 fourteen thousands of angels will follow you + 
 Eugenius, Stephanus, Protacius, Sambucius, Dioni- 
 sius, Chesilius, and Quiriacus. Write these names, 
 and let the patient carry them upon him." ' 
 
 The seven names are doubtless those of early 
 Christian saints 1 . 
 
 The charm referred to above as recited when 
 drinking the sanctified drink washed off the sacra- 
 mental paten is very similar to the last quoted. It 
 
 1 Charms of this particular kind do not often appear in 
 mediaeval books, but I have come across one such in a MS. 
 collection of recipes kept for his own use by a physician living 
 in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, whose name 
 does not occur, but who was evidently a highly educated man. 
 It is as follows : 
 
 Coniuratio Febrium. 
 
 Coniuro YOS febres de quacunque natione estis per P. F. et 
 S.S., per admonitionem Christi, per Sanctam Mariana virginem, 
 ut non noceatis huic famulo Dei sed recedatis unde venistis. 
 Amen ... a ... g ... L ... a ... de.
 
 128 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 contains no threats, but many holy names are 
 recited. 
 
 ' Adiuro vos frigores (frigora) et febres per Deum 
 pat.rem omnipotentem et per ems filium lesum 
 Christum, &c. . . . ut recedatis de hoc famulo dei et 
 de corpusculo eius,' &C. 1 
 
 IV. NARRATIVE CHARMS 
 
 A very remarkable class of charms, which in our 
 leechdoms appear to be mostly of Christian origin, 
 are those founded on some narrative or legend, 
 plainly fabulous, but introducing Christian per- 
 sonages and names. There are several examples in 
 Marcellus and other Latin and Greek writers, many 
 of which are of course much older and pre-Christian ; 
 but I quote only those given in the Anglo-Saxon 
 books. Several survived in mediaeval and even up 
 to modern times. 
 
 1 I would venture to suggest, though I do not know whether 
 the passage has ever been considered in this light, that these 
 exorcisms may have been founded on a corruption of the passage 
 in Luke, cap. iv, v. 39, where it is said that Christ ' rebuked ' the 
 fever. The same word being used in verses 35 and 41 ; He 
 ' rebuked ' the devils. 
 
 It is probable that these charms were regarded as exorcisms, 
 which would only be efficacious if pronounced by a cleric, and 
 would be improper in the mouth of a layman. Hence they are 
 rare in strictly medical books, but some survive, I believe, in the 
 manuals for exorcists. 
 
 But the earliest exorcisms against diseases, regarded as demons, 
 are found in the early Babylonian medicine (see Note, p. 100).
 
 NARRATIVE CHARMS 129 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable, or at all events the 
 most absurd of these narrative charms, is one for the 
 toothache. 
 
 ' Contra dokrem dentium. Christus super mar- 
 moreum sedebat ; Petrus tristis ante eum stabat, 
 manum ad maxillam tenebat ; et interrogabat eum 
 Dominus dicens, quare tristis es Petre ? Eespondit 
 Petrus et dixit, Domine, dentes mei dolent, et 
 Dominus dixit : Adiuro te migranea vel gutta 
 maligna per patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum et 
 per caelum et terrain, et per XX ordines angelorum 
 et per LX prophetas et per XII apostolos et per IV 
 evangelistas, &c. . . . ut non possit diabolus nocere 
 ei nee in dentes nee in aures, nee in palato famulo 
 dei,' &c. (A.-S. L. iii. 64). 
 
 This extraordinary story is met with in several 
 different forms. I have come across it in an English 
 MS. medicine book of the fourteenth century almost 
 in the same form as here. 
 
 It is strange to find a variant in modern English 
 which is current in Cornwall. 
 
 Charm for the toothache. 
 
 Christ passed by his brother's door, 
 
 Saw his brother lying on the floor : 
 
 What aileth thee, brother? 
 
 Pain in the teeth. 
 Thy teeth shall pain thee no more. 
 
 In the name, &C. 1 
 
 The following narrative charm has a special 
 historical interest as showing that the Anglo-Saxons 
 were acquainted with small-pox, and regarded their 
 name ' poccas ' as synonymous with ' variola.' Else- 
 
 1 Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, 2nd ed., 
 1871, p. 414. 
 
 PAYNE S
 
 130 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 where there are several leechdoms for ' poccas,' and 
 the word is used as equivalent to ' variola/ 
 
 ' For poccas. Sanctus Nicasius habuit minutam 
 variolam et rogavit Dominum ut quicunque nomen 
 suum secum portaret scriptum . . . Sancte Nicasi 
 presul et martir egregie ora pro me N. peccatore 
 et ab hoc morbo tua intercessione me defende. 
 Amen.' 
 
 ' St. Nicasius had the small variola, and asked 
 of God that whoever should carry his name written 
 
 ' Oh ! St. Nicasius, bishop and martyr, pray for 
 me N. a sinner, and by thy intercession defend me 
 from this disease V 
 
 Another charm of this class introduces the name 
 of Longinus (or Longius), the traditional name of 
 the soldier who pierced the side of Christ upon the 
 cross. 
 
 1 For a stitch. Write a cross of Christ, and sing 
 thrice over the place these words and a Pater 
 Noster : 
 
 ' Longinus miles lancea ponxit dominum et restitit 
 sanguis et recessit dolor' (A.-S. L. i. 393). 
 
 'Longinus, the soldier, pierced our Lord with 
 a lance, and the blood stopped and the pain ceased.' 
 
 This charm is found in the Compendium Medicinae 
 of Gilbertus Anglicus, and I have seen it also in 
 mediaeval manuscripts. It seems to have been a 
 very popular charm in the Middle Ages for healing 
 wounds and stanching blood. 
 
 Charm to hasten childbirth. It is not surprising 
 that wanting other means of hastening birth and 
 
 1 Cockayne, A.-S. L. iii. 295, from MS. Cotton. Caligula, A. xv, 
 fol. 125.
 
 NARRATIVE CHARMS 131 
 
 relieving the pains of labour, the Anglo-Saxons had 
 recourse to magical rites and charms, as in the 
 following adjuration to the unborn child : 
 
 ' Maria virgo peperit Christum. Elisabet sterilis 
 peperit lohannem Baptistam. Adiuro te infans si 
 es masculus an femina per patrem et filium et 
 spiritum sanctum ut exeas, et [non l ] recedas ; et 
 ultra, ei non noceas neque insipientiam illi facias. 
 Amen. 
 
 ' Videns Dominus flentes sorores Lazari ad monu- 
 mentum lacrimatus est coram ludeis, et clamabat : 
 Lazare, veni foras ! et prodiit, ligatus manibus et 
 pedibus, qui fuerat quatriduanus mortuus.' 
 
 ' Write this on wax which has never been applied 
 to any work, and bind it under her right foot ' 
 (A.-S. L. i. 392). 
 
 It may seem extraordinary that the history of 
 a dead man raised to life should be used to hasten 
 the birth of a living child, but this ' Lazarus charm ' 
 seems to have been popular in the Middle Ages, 
 
 1 The sense here evidently requires a negative : ' I conjure 
 thee, infant, whether thou be male or female, by the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, that thou come forth, and draw not 
 back, and further that thou injure not the one nor commit any 
 folly against the other. Amen.' [Perhaps it merely means ' that 
 thou do no harm to thy mother.'] 
 
 ' The Lord, seeing the sisters of Lazarus weeping by his tomb, 
 himself wept in sight of the Jews, and cried out, Lazarus ! come 
 forth ; and he came out, bound hand and foot, who had been 
 four days dead.' 
 
 This charm is given by Mr. Cockayne from a Bodleian MS. 
 (Junius 85), of which the age is not stated, but the English part 
 is distinctly of the Anglo-Saxon period. 
 
 A very similar one is quoted by Heim from a Latin MS. of 
 the eleventh century written in Germany (Incantamenta magica, 
 P- 55).
 
 132 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 and might possibly be found lingering at the 
 present day in some parts of the country. 
 
 Another and earlier use of the story of Lazarus 
 may be quoted from Aetius of Amida, who has 
 been mentioned as one of the first to introduce 
 magic into Greek medicine. 
 
 ' To remove a bone sticking in the throat. Look at 
 the patient and say ai/eA0e oWow. " Come up, bone ! 
 whether bone or fruit, or whatever else it is ; as 
 Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the tomb, and 
 Jonah out of the whale." : 
 
 Another charm is : ' Take hold of the patient's 
 larynx and say : " Blasius the martyr, servant of 
 God, saith, Go up, bone ! or go down. 1 " 
 
 i 
 V. MATERIAL MAGIC, OR AMULETS 
 
 Besides written charms used as amulets, certain 
 objects, such as parts of animals or plants, precious 
 stones, and gems engraved with mystical devices, 
 were thought to have virtues against disease, if 
 applied to or carried about by the sick man. There 
 are many of these recommended by Alexander 
 Trallianus, Marcellus, and other old writers. 
 
 The following occurs in the Leech Book of 
 Bald: 
 
 ' For onfall 2 (translated 'Fellon'). Catch a fox, 
 strike off the tusk from him while he is alive. Let 
 
 1 Aetius, Tetrabiblon , Book viii. fol. 165, 1. 46, ed. Venice, 
 
 1534- 
 
 2 This word is translated by Mr. Cockayne 'fellon,' i.e. boil 
 or whitlow, but this is not satisfactory, as the treatment is 
 only by internal medicines and charms without external applica- 
 tions. There is a bimilar charm in Marcellus Empiricus (cap.
 
 MATERIAL MAGIC, OR AMULETS 133 
 
 the fox run away; bind (the tooth) in a fawn's 
 skin ; have it upon thee ' (A.-S. L. ii. 105). 
 
 Here are a number of charms for headache : 
 
 1 In case a man ache in the head, take the lower 
 part of crosswort, put it on a red fillet, let him bind 
 the head therewith.' 
 
 ' For the same : Delve up waybroad without iron, 
 ere the rising of the sun, bind the roots about the 
 head with crossworts by a red fillet. He will soon 
 be well.' 
 
 ' For the same : Seek in the maw of young swal- 
 lows for some little stones, and mind that they 
 touch neither earth, nor water, nor other stones ; 
 look out three of them ; sew up three of them in 
 what thou wilt, and put them on the man that 
 hath need : he will soon be well. They are good 
 for headache and eye-troubles, and for temptations 
 of the fiend, and for night visitors (goblins), and 
 for spring disease (ague), and for nightmare, and 
 for fascination, and for evil incantations. They 
 must be big nestlings in which thou shalt find them * 
 (A.-S. L. ii. 307). 
 
 * For swollen eyes. Take a live crab, put his eyes 
 out and put him alive again into water, and put the 
 eyes upon the neck of the man who hath need. He 
 will soon be well ' (A.-S- L. ii. 307). 
 
 The injunction to let the animal which supplied 
 the amulet go alive is found in several instances. 
 An almost similar prescription is given by Marcellus 
 Empiricus (De Medicamentis, cap. viii. 51, p. 69, ed. 
 
 viii. 129) in which the tongue is to be cut out of a living fox and 
 worn as an amulet for albugo, i.e. white spots on the eyes. Per- 
 haps the Saxon translator got into some confusion. Also the 
 brain of a fox was used to preserve children from the ' falling 
 sickness.' On the whole we must conclude that the meaning of 
 ' onfall ' is uncertain.
 
 134 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 Helmreich, 1889). There are several such prescrip- 
 tions in the Medicine from Quadrupeds of Sextus 
 Placitus, translated by the Anglo-Saxons and re- 
 ferred to in my first lecture. The teeth of a badger 
 are there said to have magic virtues. 
 
 The following, from the work just named, is 
 curious, as it is not contained in the original Latin, 
 but seems to have been added by the Saxon trans- 
 lators : 
 
 'For a fever. Take the right foot-shank of a dead 
 black hound ; hang it on the arm. It shaketh off 
 the fever ' (A.-S. L. i. 363). 
 
 VI. TRANSFERENCE OF DISEASE BY A VERBAL 
 
 FORMULA, OR BY A CEREMONY TO SOME ANIMAL OR 
 
 MATERIAL OBJECT, OR IN SOME WAY TO 
 
 THE OUTSIDE WORLD 
 
 In these observances it was thought necessary 
 that the object to which the disease was transferred 
 should be thrown away, or, if an animal, should be 
 allowed to escape alive or driven away as a sort 
 of scapegoat. Running water, sometimes used for 
 such purposes, obviously fulfils this condition spon- 
 taneously. 
 
 An instance of making the disease pass into 
 running water is the following curious prescription 
 for some disease of the skin : 
 
 ' For Blaece \ Take goose-grease and the nether end 
 
 1 Blcece was some kind of skin disease. It is rendered in 
 one Glossary vitiligo, but it is also regarded as equivalent to 
 lepra in the old sense, that is the modern psoriasis. See 
 Cockayne's Glossary in vol. ii. The word is connected with bleach.
 
 \ 
 TRANSFERENCE OF DISEASE 135 
 
 of helenium, and viper's bugloss, bishopswort, and 
 hayrife : pound the four worts well together, wring 
 them, add thereto a spoonful of old soap if you have 
 it, mingle thoroughly a little oil and at night lather 
 it on. Scarify the neck after the setting of 
 the sun, pour silently the blood into running water ; 
 after that spit three times, then say : " Have thou 
 this unheal (evil) and depart away with it." Go 
 again by a clean way to the house, and go either 
 way in silence ' (A.-S. L. ii. 77). 
 
 ' For onfall. Take, to begin, a hazel or an elder 
 stick ; write thy name thereon, cut three scores, and 
 fill the name with thy blood ; throw it over thy 
 shoulder or between thy thighs into running water, 
 and stand over the man. Cut the scores and do 
 all this in silence ' (A.-S. L. ii. 105). 
 
 We have here a charm combined with throwing 
 away an object : 
 
 ' For flying venom (i. e. air-borne infection). Make 
 four strokes with an oaken brand towards the four 
 quarters of heaven. Make the brand bloody, throw 
 it away and sing this three times : 
 
 ' -j- Matheus me ducat -f- Marcus me 
 conservet, -f- Lucas me liberet -|- 
 lohannes me adiuvet semper. Amen. 
 Contrive [contere] Deus omnem 
 malum et nequitiam per virtutem 
 patris et filii et spiritus sancti 
 sanctifica me Emanuhel ihs xps 
 libera me ab omnibus invidiis inimici 
 benedictio domini super caput meum. 
 potens Deus in omni tempore. Amen ' 
 
 (A.-S. L. iii. 53). 
 
 ' Matthew, lead me ! Mark, preserve me ! Luke, 
 deliver me ! John, assist me ! Lord, crush all evil
 
 136 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 and wickedness by the power of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, &c.' 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS 
 
 Besides these special classes there are other 
 charms difficult to classify. An instance is the 
 following numerical charm. A similar form of words 
 occurs in many nursery rhymes, and some of these 
 4 counting-out ' rhymes have been shown to be of 
 great antiquity. 
 
 ' For Kernels (i.e. scrofulous glands). Nine were 
 Noththe's sisters : then the nine came to be eight, 
 and the eight seven, and the seven six, and 
 the six five, and the five four, and the four 
 three, and the three two, and the two one, and the 
 one none. This may be medicine for thee from 
 kernels, and from scrofulles, and from worm, and 
 from every mischief ' ( A.-S. L. iii. 63). 
 
 Who Noththe was is unexplained. Perhaps the 
 charm was derived from a similar one recorded by 
 Marcellus Empiricus. He recommends, to get rid 
 of 'glands,' to repeat at night or evening the follow- 
 ing : novem glandulae sorores, octo glandulae sorores, etc. 
 down to una glandula soror : novem fiunt glandulae 
 ending with nulla fit glandula J . 
 
 The latest form of the charm I know is a Cornish 
 rhyme. 
 
 1 Marcellus, de Medicamentis, cap. xv. 102, p. 151. Possibly 
 ' Noththe ' was originally some word corresponding to glandula, 
 such as nodus, which was mistaken for a proper name.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS 137 
 
 Charm for a tetter. 
 
 1 Tetter, tetter, thou hast nine brothers, 
 God bless the flesh and preserve the bone, 
 Perish thou tetter and be thou gone. 
 In the name, &c. 
 
 Tetter, Tetter, thou hast eight brothers,' 
 
 and so on, till tetter, having no brother, is impera- 
 tively ordered to begone J . 
 
 Among miscellaneous charms are these : 
 
 ' In case a man be month sick (lunatic), take skin 
 of mere-swine (porpoise) ; make it into a whip. 
 Swinge him therewith ; soon will he be well. 
 Amen' (A.-S. L. ii. 335). 
 
 1 If a man is going to fight with his foe, let him 
 seethe swallow nestlings in wine, or in spring water ; 
 then let him eat them before the fight' (A.-S. L. 
 
 ii- 155). 
 
 ' Against a woman's chatter. Taste at night fasting 
 
 a radish ; that day the chatter cannot harm thee' 
 (A.-S.L.u. 343 ). 
 
 This seems ludicrous ; but the word translated 
 chatter, Gemcedlan, must really mean something 
 mischievous or harmful. The sense probably is: 
 ' Against a witch's spells.' 
 
 A LAY OP THE VIRTUES OP WORTS 
 
 In the collection called Lacnunga or recipes, 
 printed in the third volume of Cockayne's Leecli- 
 doms, we find (p. 31), besides ordinary charms, some 
 
 1 Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, 2nd ed., 
 p. 414.
 
 138 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 remarkable verses relating to herbs. The MS. 
 from which these are taken (B. M. Harleian MS. 
 585), is a miscellaneous collection, described in the 
 old catalogue as * Farrago medicamentorum et in- 
 cantationum sive carminum, diversis manibus sed 
 vetustis.' Hence it is not a complete book, but 
 a medley of receipts in Latin and English, so that 
 there is nothing in the book itself to show the origin 
 of this curious poem, in which there is a remarkable 
 mixture of heathen and Christian ideas. 
 
 Professor Skeat, who has kindly given me some 
 information about the poem, says that * it is an old 
 heathen charm preserved down to Christian times, 
 when allusions to Christianity would be possible. 
 The dialect is Wessex, or South Saxon, generally 
 called Anglo-Saxon ; not Midland and not Northern. 
 The MS. seems to be late tenth century.; but it is 
 a reminiscence of something older.' 
 
 The poem is a ' lay ' in the usual alliterative 
 Anglo-Saxon metre, addressed to nine sacred worts 
 (though one is a tree), viz. mugwort, waybroad 
 (Plantago), stime (lamb's cress), atterlothe (Panicum 
 crus galli), maythen (camomile), wergulu (nettle), 
 crab-apple, chervil, and fennel. 
 
 Mr. Cockayne gives a metrical translation of the 
 lay in alliterative lines, of which I give the first 
 portion, with a few trifling alterations to make it 
 more intelligible ; though I may thus have some- 
 times a little interfered with the metre. 
 
 ' Have a mind thou mugwort, 
 What thou didst mention,
 
 LAY OF THE VIRTUES OF WORTS 139 
 
 What thou didst prepare 
 
 At Regenmeld l 
 
 Thou hightest una, 
 
 The eldest of worts. 
 
 Thou hast might against three 
 
 And against thirty. 
 
 Thou art good against venom, 
 And against vile things that fly, 
 Mighty against the loathed ones 
 That rove through the land.' 
 
 The last two lines appear to refer to epidemic 
 diseases. 
 
 Why an Anglo-Saxon should have so much 
 reverence for the humble mugwort we do not know ; 
 but it was a sacred herb among the Greeks, taking 
 its name ' Artemisia ' from Artemis, who assisted 
 women in childbirth. For this reason it was some- 
 times called Herba matrum, and sometimes, by a 
 curious inversion, Mater lierbarum. 
 
 The other worts are addressed in turn thus : 
 
 'Thou waybroad, mother of worts.' Stime is 
 spoken of thus : ' Stime hight this wort ; on stone 
 she grew, standeth against venom.' ' Atterlothe is 
 the wort which fought against worm (snake) ; this 
 avails for venom.' Of maythen it is said that 
 * never for flying ill fatally fell man, since maythen 
 was given for medicine.' 
 
 But the most remarkable passage is the account 
 given of wergulu 2 , which I will give at length. 
 
 1 This is a place-name, perhaps mythical (Dr. Bradley). 
 
 2 ' Wergulu ' is translated ' crab apple ' by Mr. Cockayne, but 
 in a list on the next page it is replaced by ' nettle.' Dr. Bradley 
 writes : ' Wergulu seems to be the feminine of wcergol = accursed
 
 140 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 4 This is the wort which wergulu hight ; 
 This did the seal send 
 Over the sea's ridge 
 Of other poison 
 The malice to mend. 
 These nine plants 
 'Gainst nine poisons. 
 
 ' A worm came sneaking, 
 It bit a man. 
 Then took up Woden 
 Nine wondrous twigs. 
 He smote the nadder 
 Till it flew in nine bits 
 There did apple and poison 
 Bring about that it [sc. the nadder] 
 Nevermore entered house.' 
 
 The meaning of this second passage evidently is 
 that Woden with nine sticks of the crab tree slew 
 some ' worm,' i. e. adder. This may be a legend 
 from the northern mythology, but of this I can say 
 nothing. The use of the sacred number nine in 
 several passages is notable. 
 
 The two remaining worts, chervil and fennel, are 
 spoken of as ' two mighty ones.' ' These worts 
 the Lord created, "witty" (i. e. wise and skilful) 
 as he is.' 
 
 The conclusion is that these nine worts avail 
 against nine exiles from glory *, against nine venoms 
 and flying vile things, against the red venom, the 
 stinking venom, &c., against water blister, against 
 
 (preserved only in wcergolnyss = maledictio. There is no reason 
 to render it crab-apple, or apple at all.' 
 
 1 Meaning nine devils (Cockayne). The phrase suggests fallen 
 angels.
 
 LAY OF THE VIRTUES OF WORTS 141 
 
 thorn blister, &c., against any venoms which come 
 from any quarter, and so forth. 
 
 Near the end the name of Christ occurs, but 
 the sense is very obscure. 
 
 This extraordinary composition has not the form 
 of a charm, but still, it is directed to be sung 
 in the same way as a charm and with the same 
 intention. 
 
 But what makes it notable is the remarkable 
 mingling of beliefs and different kinds of learning. 
 The beginning suggests some knowledge of classical 
 botany, such as we find in other Anglo-Saxon books. 
 The story of Woden belongs to Northern myth- 
 ology ; and finally we have Christian belief in the 
 mention of Christ. This combination of diverse 
 elements is in fact characteristic of Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine generally, and more especially of their 
 herbal medicines. In this we find, as I have tried 
 to show, a traditional popular knowledge of herbs, 
 with further acquisitions derived from classical 
 medicine and from magic ; all this being sifted, cor- 
 rected, and dominated by the formularies and beliefs 
 of the Christian clergy. 
 
 I cannot say more on this subject of charms and 
 magical medicine, though the subject is certainly 
 very interesting. As we have seen, some part of 
 the Anglo-Saxon beliefs on these matters may be 
 traced back to classical sources, and, beyond them, 
 to Oriental magic. It is probable that, if we knew 
 more about it, we should find the roots of other 
 portions in the old folk-lore of the Teutonic and
 
 142 LECTURE II: PART II 
 
 Celtic peoples, but of this I am not competent to 
 speak. Another field of research lies in the subse- 
 quent history of these magical words and ceremonies. 
 I believe that on investigation it would be found 
 that many of them survived all through the Middle 
 Ages and longer. Some will be found to have 
 endured, in spite of popular education and scientific 
 medicine, to the present day. 
 
 Of these survivals I have been able only to bring 
 together a few scattered instances, but the subject 
 would well repay investigation by those who are 
 conversant with popular traditions and provincial 
 customs not yet quite obsolete. Probably no very 
 small number of persons are even now, with more 
 or less credulity, repeating the words and perform- 
 ing the rites in which our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 
 placed implicit confidence.
 
 THE TREATISE IIEPI AIAAHEON 143 
 
 PAET III 
 
 THE TREATISE HEPI AIAAEEON 
 
 There is one treatise in the Anglo-Saxon medical 
 library very different in character and origin from 
 the rest which requires special mention. It has 
 the Greek title n*pi SiSdgecw, l of teachings,' which 
 appears to mean ' of medical doctrines ' or ' schools 
 of medicine.' This title is only appropriate, how- 
 ever, to the first chapter of the book ; the remainder 
 consists of prescriptions for a number of ailments, 
 beginning with the head and proceeding downwards, 
 as in the Leech Book and in many other medical 
 treatises, making in all sixty-six chapters. It has 
 been shown by Herr Max Loweneck 1 , who has pub- 
 lished a new edition of the work from the same 
 MS. in the British Museum as that edited by Mr. 
 Cockayne, that it is an abstract of, or in part trans- 
 lated from, a Latin treatise by a writer of the school 
 of Salerno, who lived in the eleventh century, 
 Petrocellus or Petronius. The title of his treatise 
 is Practica Petrocetti Salernitani. It has been printed, 
 though apparently from an imperfect copy, by De 
 Kenzi, in the collection called Cottectio Salernitana, 
 vol. iv (Naples, 1856). The Latin and English are 
 both printed in Herr Loweneck's edition, so that 
 they can be easily compared. There are also some 
 indications that the treatise was indebted in part 
 
 1 Erlanger Beitrdge zur englischen Philologie, No. xii ; Ilepi 
 Si8atov, eine Sammlung von Rezepten in englischer Sprache, 
 herausgegeben von Max Loweneck, Erlangen, 1896.
 
 144 LECTURE II: PART III 
 
 to another writer of the same school, Gariopontus. 
 Both these writers lived and wrote before the middle 
 of the eleventh century, which was an important 
 epoch in the School of Salerno. 
 
 It is, therefore, clear that the Anglo-Saxon com- 
 piler was acquainted with works of the School of 
 Salerno belonging to that period, and, without enter- 
 ing fully into the subject, I must say a few words 
 about what this School of Salerno was. 
 
 The origin of this, the oldest school of medicine 
 in modern Europe, and indeed the earliest European 
 university, is still obscure, and cannot be certainly 
 assigned to any definite date. The one thing certain 
 is that there had been living there from what were 
 called, even in the eleventh century, ancient times, 
 a group of physicians who not only practised but 
 taught their profession. The reason for this con- 
 centration of medical art in a small place was that, 
 being situated in a mild and salubrious climate on the 
 coast of Italy, south of Naples, Salerno had a great 
 reputation as a health resort, to which patients 
 flocked not only from Italy but from other parts of 
 Europe. As the reputation of its doctors increased, 
 students also collected there to learn their profession. 
 In this way, gradually and informally, a school of 
 medicine grew up, as a school might conceivably 
 have grown up in other popular health resorts had 
 there been no universities or other recognized centres 
 of learning. There was, however, some kind of 
 organization, with a Provost or Prior at its head ; 
 and a more complete official recognition was given
 
 THE TREATISE IIEPI AIAASEflN 145 
 
 to the school by Frederick II, King of Sicily, 
 in 1231. 
 
 At the time we are now speaking of, in the 
 eleventh century, the absence of other important 
 medical schools in Europe made Salerno the one 
 eminent school of the healing art in Western 
 Europe, and it only lost this pre-eminence through 
 the rise of the University of Montpellier. This is 
 the simple explanation, which it is necessary to 
 emphasize because a different but erroneous theory 
 has found its way into standard historical works. 
 This theory ascribes the foundation to Saracen teachers 
 who are supposed to have introduced into Italy the 
 Arabian medicine ; or to the monk Constantine the 
 African, who was the first to make known that 
 Arabian medicine to the western world. But there 
 is no foundation for the belief that the origin of the 
 Salernitan school was due to the Arabians or to 
 their interpreter Constantine. The Arabian medi- 
 cine was indeed introduced by Constantine at a 
 definite tune, after the middle of the eleventh 
 century; but at that time the school was already 
 celebrated, and had produced medical works still 
 extant, which show no trace of Arabian influence. 
 Nor is there any better ground for another theory, 
 that Salerno was an ecclesiastical foundation. The 
 one fact that among the early teachers of the school 
 we find the names of Jews, and of women, as well 
 as of ecclesiastics is sufficient to refute this theory. 
 Into the further history of Salerno I cannot enter, 
 but must refer those who desire more information
 
 146 LECTURE II : PART III 
 
 to Mr. Rashdall's admirable History of European 
 Universities l . 
 
 If we say that this and other Salernitan books of 
 the time were based upon the teaching of Hippo- 
 crates, it may convey an impression of more direct 
 following and closer conformity than really exist. 
 The teachers of Salerno were eminently practical ; 
 they took from the Greek books what was useful for 
 practice, and useful especially for treatment, neglect- 
 ing the theoretical side, and did not pay much 
 attention to symptoms or diagnosis. What profess 
 to be quotations from Hippocrates are absurdly 
 inaccurate, and the Greek words often so badly 
 spelt as to be beyond recognition. 
 
 Now it will be asked, where did the early teachers 
 of Salerno get their knowledge ; and what kind of 
 medicine did they teach ? The answer is, that their 
 doctrine was a direct survival of the old Greek 
 medicine, and especially of the teachings of Hippo- 
 crates, who was so much honoured at Salerno that 
 the school was popularly called Civitas Hippocratica. 
 Galen was not much quoted, though his authority 
 was great, and the later Greek physicians of Asia 
 Minor, and Byzantium, such as Aetius and Alexan- 
 der, whom I have before referred to as great 
 authorities with the Anglo-Saxons, were on the 
 
 1 The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, by Hastings 
 Rashdall, Oxford, 1895, vol. i, ch. iii. See also L'^cole de 
 Salerne, ed. Saint-Marc et Daremberg, Paris, 1880. For the 
 original sources, see De Renzi, Storia documentata della Scuola 
 medico, di Salerno, 2nd ed., Naples, 1857; and Collectio Salerni- 
 tana, five volumes, Naples, 1852, et seq.
 
 THE TREATISE EEPI AIAABEflN 147 
 
 whole less recognized. Of the Latin medical writers 
 they were influenced only by Caelius Aurelianus, the 
 chief Latin writer of the sect of the ' methodists.' 
 It is also very noteworthy that the Salernitan writers 
 of the first period were entirely uncontaminated by 
 the superstitious medicine which had invaded Europe 
 from the East ; and nothing like charms or magical 
 rites can be found in their works. The school of 
 Salerno was thus a survival of the Greek medicine 
 lasting into the Middle Ages; it was the bridge 
 between the old medicine and the new. 
 
 So much it seems desirable to say, in order to 
 show what was the nature of the medical doctrine 
 contained in the old books of Salerno, which the 
 Anglo-Saxons embraced with their usual receptive- 
 ness, and translated into their vernacular English. 
 It will be seen that this treatise 'Peri Didaxeon' 
 differs very widely from the rest of the Anglo-Saxon 
 medical library. It seems possible that had the old 
 English school not been violently cut short by the 
 Norman invasion, it might have entered on a new 
 phase, tinctured by the medicine of Salerno. But 
 this could not be ; and, moreover, the Salernitan 
 medicine itself, immediately after the time we are 
 now speaking of, was profoundly altered by the 
 introduction of the Arabic versions of the Greek 
 medical classics. On the other hand, it is conceiv- 
 able that this book, which exists only in a single 
 manuscript, may have been merely the work of one 
 individual translator ; and not have been widely 
 known.
 
 148 LECTURE II: PART III 
 
 The differences between this and the other Anglo- 
 Saxon Leech Books are very striking. Although, like 
 the others, it is little more than a collection of 
 receipts, the prescriptions are notable for the small 
 number of drugs contained in them, thus contrast- 
 ing with the profuse polypharmacy of the old 
 Anglo-Saxon leechdoms. The herbs prescribed are 
 mostly such as would occur in Southern Europe, 
 and though some of these were Northern herbs also, 
 we miss the profusion of native English herbs in 
 which the old leeches delighted. A few oriental 
 drugs are mentioned. The pharmacy is generally 
 very simple ; and, as might be expected, there is an 
 entire absence of charms and superstitious rites. 
 
 On examining this curious treatise more closely, 
 we must confirm the important discovery of Lowe- 
 neck, that a great part of it is based upon the Latin 
 treatise called Practica of the Salernitan physician 
 Petrocellus already mentioned. But this does not 
 account for the whole of the English book. The 
 order of the chapters is different, and there are some 
 passages not to be found in that writer ; while in 
 some places the English text gives a fuller reading 
 than is to be found in the Latin. One curious fact is 
 that certain Greek words occur in the English version 
 which are not found in Petrocellus. For instance, 
 we find a word, *e<aAo7jWa, or pain of the head, 
 meaning nearly the same as cephalaea, or head- 
 ache. This, with other unusual words, occurs in 
 another Salernitan work of the same period, the 
 Passionarius of Gariopontus, showing that it was
 
 THE TREATISE IIEPI AIAAHEflN 149 
 
 a term current in the school of Salerno. The word 
 is not classical, or at least cannot be found in our 
 Greek dictionaries, and, so far as I know, is not used 
 by Hippocrates or Galen. 
 
 We must now give a few extracts. 
 
 The prologue from which the book takes its name, 
 though not really a part of it, deals with the history 
 of medicine, and as this is a subject which naturally 
 interests us, we will quote it in full. 
 
 1 Here beginneth the book Ilepl Ai.8dgt<av, that is, 
 the setting forth for how many years leechcraft was 
 hidden, and the learned leeches sagaciously investi- 
 gated about the ascertaining of it. The earliest was 
 Apollo, and his son Aesculapius, and Asclepios ; 
 and Asclepios was uncle of Hippocrates ; these four 
 earliest invented the building up of leechcrafts about 
 fifteen hundred years after Noah's flood in the days 
 of Artaxerxes, who was king of the Persians ; they 
 revealed the light of the leechcrafts. We know 
 that Apollo first invented methodicam, that is, the 
 irons, when one healeth men with knives, and 
 Aesculapius empiricam, that is, the leechening (or 
 medical use) of leechcrafts, and Asclepios loicam 
 (logicam), that is, the observance of the law and the 
 life, and Hippocrates theoricam, that is, the foreseeing 
 of the sicknesses l . 
 
 ' Then Plato and Aristoteles, the very learned 
 philosophers, followed after these the aforesaid 
 leeches, and they said that there are four humours 
 in the human body ; inasmuch as there are also in 
 the rainbow [?] ; that is, the liquid (or phlegm) in the 
 head, and the blood in the breast ; and the rough (or 
 red) bile in the inwards, and the black bile within the 
 (gall) bladder. And each of them ruleth for three 
 
 1 The rest of this chapter is not contained in the Latin text of 
 Petrocellus, at least in this form.
 
 150 LECTURE II: PART III 
 
 months. That is from the i8th Calends January to 
 the 8th Cal. April the phlegm in the head is 
 waxing,' and so on. 
 
 As the other days are not correctly stated I will 
 only give the sense, which is that from the winter 
 solstice to the vernal equinox, phlegm increases ; 
 from the latter to midsummer, the blood ; from that 
 time to the autumnal equinox, the red bile ; from 
 that to the winter solstice again, the black bile. 
 That is, broadly, the four humours dominate in 
 winter, spring, summer, and autumn respectively. 
 This doctrine is found in Petrocellus and many old 
 writers ; it is part of the celebrated old doctrine 
 of the 'humours,' the foundation of the humoral 
 pathology, but is not elsewhere expounded in Anglo- 
 Saxon medicine. 
 
 This curious sketch of the history of medicine is 
 also found prefixed in a MS. in the British Museum 1 
 to an anonymous treatise which appears to be 
 identical with the Practica of Petrocellus. It is also 
 given, though not in the same words, by Isidore of 
 Seville in his Etymologiae, from whom it may possibly 
 have been derived 2 . 
 
 The matter of the extract will not bear, and 
 hardly deserves, criticism. The most remarkable 
 error is mistaking Asclepios and Aesculapius for two 
 different persons. 
 
 The rest of the book consists of a collection of 
 
 1 MS. Harl. 4977; also in Sloane 2839. 
 
 2 S. Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Libri Etymologiarum lib. iv; De 
 Medicina, cap. 3 ; De Inventoribui Eius, ed. Venice, 1483, fol. 20.
 
 THE TREATISE IIEPI AIAAEEflN 151 
 
 remedies for various diseases, beginning with those 
 for the head. The first chapter is headed ' For 
 humours ' (i. e. of the head) : 
 
 1 Thus shall one work the salve for " humours," and 
 thus shall they be healed. Take twenty shillings 
 weight of litharge, and twenty shillings weight of 
 new lime, and half a sextarius of vinegar, and four 
 shillings weight of oil of myrtle, and mingle to- 
 gether, and rub them thoroughly up together with 
 the vinegar, and then take some other oil, and 
 mingle therewith and smear the sore therewith V 
 
 This is in fact an ointment of acetate of lead. 
 There is a remarkable mingling of languages in 
 the following prescription : 
 
 Contra glaucomata. For dimness of eyes. 
 
 'This shall be for dimness of eyes, which the 
 Greeks call glaucomata. Take of woman's milk three 
 spoonfuls, and celandine id est celidonia juice one 
 spoonful, and aloes and crocus, safran gallice and 
 mingle them together, &c.' (A. -8. L. iii. 97). 
 
 This shows that the writer copied some Greek 
 words, himself wrote Latin, and knew that crocus 
 was called safran in French. The latter fragment 
 of knowledge is intelligible if we remember that his 
 version was written after the Norman conquest. The 
 
 1 The word which I have translated 'humours/ oman, is 
 rendered by Mr. Cockayne in all places ' erysipelas,' but evidently 
 this is too narrow an interpretation. It means moist eruptions 
 on the skin, still often popularly called humours. In this passage 
 it means probably impetigo of the scalp, as appears from 
 the Latin of Petrocellus : ' Hoc tamen proprium ad achoras 
 adiutorium est quod recipe : Lytargiri 3 xx et calcem vivam 
 cum aceto tere et supermitte oleum et utere,' Practica Petrocelli, 
 cap. 12; Collectio Salernitana, vol. iv, p. 196.
 
 152 LECTURE II: PART III 
 
 Latin text is much shorter, only prescribing the 
 same remedies ad caliginem, without giving any 
 Greek name to the disease. 
 
 There is an extraordinary mistranslation in the 
 following prescription for nyctalopia : 
 
 'For those who cannot see from sunrise to sunset. For 
 nectalopas (w/craAeoTras), that is, in our own language, 
 the men who are able to see nothing after the rising 
 of the sun till he go again to his setting. This is the 
 leechcraft which thereto belongeth. Take a kneecap 
 (or knee bone) of a buck and roast it, and, when the roast 
 sweats, then take the sweat and therewith smear 
 the eyes, and after that let him eat the same roast ; 
 and then take fresh asses' dung and squeeze it, and 
 smear the eyes therewith, and it will soon be better 
 with them ' (A.-S. L. iii. 99). 
 
 The words here translated 'kneecap of a buck' 
 are in the Latin epar urricinum (or ericinum), the 
 liver of a hedgehog. This extraordinary blunder 
 seems inexplicable 1 . 
 
 This is one of the prescriptions for which no 
 equivalent can be found in the Latin : 
 
 ' For affections of the tongue. This leechcraft shall 
 
 1 The Latin text of Petrocellus is as follows : 'Ad Noctilopas. 
 Ad noctilopas oculorum, id est, qui post solis ortum usque ad 
 occasum videre non possunt. Epar urricinum assum fiat, et ex 
 humore qui inde defluit, dum assatur, oculos inunge, et ipsum 
 dabis ad manducandum ; et asinino fimo per lintheum colato 
 perunges ' (Practica Petrocelli ; Collectio Salernitana, vol. iv, 
 p. 202). It is curious that 'nyctalopia' is here used, as it has 
 been by most modern writers, for day blindness ; whereas 
 the ancients generally used the term for night blindness (see 
 remarks by Mr. Tweedy in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, article 
 'Nyctalopia'). The error may, perhaps, have started with the 
 writers of the school of Salerno.
 
 THE TREATISE IIEPI AIAAHEHN 153 
 
 be done for men in whom the string under the 
 tongue is badly swollen ; and through the string 
 first every disorder cometh on the man. Then take 
 thou first the kernel that is within the peach, and 
 kernel of wild cucumber and colewort stalk ; pound 
 them together and cut the string under the tongue 
 and put the powder in ; and it will soon be better 
 with him ' (A.-S. L. iii. 103). 
 
 Though we do not know the original of this, 
 the mention of peach-stones and wild cucumber 
 makes it probable that the prescription was of 
 Italian origin. 
 
 The following is an example of a simple prescrip- 
 tion : 
 
 'Ad acidiva. For acidiva, that is, the hot water 
 which shooteth up out of the breast, and at whiles out 
 of the maw. Then shall he (the patient) drink five 
 handfuls of salt water, and again take seed of worm- 
 wood, and seethe it in water, and mingle it with 
 wine, and let the man drink it ; also take three or 
 five peppercorns, and let him eat them. Again 
 take betony, one shilling's weight, and seethe in 
 water, and give him to drink fasting. Again take 
 rue and pound it, and then lay it in vinegar, and 
 give him to drink fasting. Also take seed of lovage, 
 a handful, and let him eat it l ' (A.-S. L. iii. 129). 
 
 1 The corresponding passage in Petrocellus is : ' Accidiva vel 
 carbunculus coquitur in pectore vel in stomacho quasi aqua 
 calida; pacientesautem aque salse bibant ciatosV; mitigat dolorem/ 
 etc. All the drugs named in the English text are mentioned, 
 except the last (Coll. Salern. iv, p. 223, 47, De Saliva). 
 The description corresponds to an attack of flatulence and heart- 
 burn, though it is strange to find carbunculus used of an internal 
 disorder. The word accidiva seems to be a synonym of 
 accidentia. In Low Latin this was used for ' malady ' as well as 
 'misfortune' (=mor bus, infortunium,maZacfo'e accidentelle. Migne,
 
 154 LECTURE II : PART III 
 
 The rest of the book must be lightly passed over. 
 It contains a good many Greek names for diseases, 
 many of them very incorrectly spelt, some indeed 
 which look like Greek being quite unintelligible. 
 There are also references to, and even what profess 
 to be quotations from Hippocrates, which, however, 
 are very inaccurate. For instance, a long passage 
 begins with the statement that, according to Hippo- 
 crates, some bodies have more veins than others, 
 and that the body is warmer in those that have more 
 veins than in those which have fewer. The real 
 sense is that some bodies have wider veins than 
 others 1 . This seems to show that the translator 
 was not very strong in Latin. (A.-S. L. iii. 143.) 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE SALERNITAN 'PRACTICA' WITH 
 THE SAXON LEECH BOOK 
 
 Before leaving the Practica of Petrocellus of 
 Salerno, it may be interesting to compare with it 
 our earliest original medical textbook, the Leech 
 Book of Bald and Gild, and see if the one has any 
 great superiority over the other. In making this 
 comparison it is only fair to remember that the 
 Anglo-Saxon treatise was written about a century 
 earlier. 
 
 The books are alike in this, that neither can be 
 
 Lexicon Med. et Inf. Latin). Perhaps the writer thought there 
 was some connexion with acidus. At least Mr. Cockayne seems 
 to have fallen into this error in translating it ' acidity.' 
 
 1 Hippocrates, in the second book of the Epidemics, speaks of 
 those who have wide veins ; but says nothing about their being 
 warmer than others (Hippocrates, ed. Kiihn, vol. iii, p. 433).
 
 called original, except in the sense of an original 
 compilation, derived from several different sources. 
 Each consists mainly of a collection of medical 
 receipts, with hardly any general exposition, and 
 only scanty references to pathology and symptoms. 
 
 The first point that strikes one in which the 
 Salernitan book has a clear superiority over the 
 Anglo-Saxon, is the complete freedom of the former 
 from the magic and superstition which tainted the 
 Anglo-Saxon and all other European medicine of 
 the time. This is a most important and praiseworthy 
 feature in the School of Salerno, which placed that 
 School not only above the Anglo-Saxon leeches, but 
 also above the contemporary Greek physicians of the 
 Eastern Empire, and above Mediaeval medicine in 
 Europe for two centuries or more. 
 
 Apart from this, there is considerable similarity 
 between the two books. The Anglo-Saxons, like 
 the Salernitans, borrowed largely from the old 
 Greek medicine, adding thereto from their own 
 knowledge and experience. Both apparently knew 
 the Greek through Latin versions ; but the Anglo- 
 Saxons, though they fell into some strange errors, 
 made more copious and, generally, more valuable 
 extracts than the Salernitans, whose references to 
 Hippocrates and Galen are so marvellously inac- 
 curate as sometimes to appear almost fictitious. 
 
 In addition to this, the Anglo-Saxons had their old 
 indigenous herbal medicine ; while the Salernitans 
 had traditions handed down through many genera- 
 tions of practical physicians. The Saxons had a much
 
 156 LECTURE II: PART III 
 
 wider knowledge of herbs, and disposed of a larger 
 Materia Medica than the doctors of Salerno, whose 
 Pharmacopoeia seems to have been somewhat 
 limited. 
 
 On the other hand the Salernitans show a more 
 intelligent selection of drugs, and perhaps were wise 
 in using only a few ; at least they were right in 
 combining a few only in one prescription. Their 
 formulae are clear, simple, and written on a uniform 
 system which implies traditional skill and culture. 
 The Anglo-Saxon leechdoms are often obscure, 
 cumbrous, and composed on no regular system, 
 using a large number of drugs at once. This last 
 error, indeed, was not peculiar to them ; for equally 
 complicated prescriptions were used by English and 
 Continental physicians up to comparatively recent 
 times. But with greater resources than the Salerni- 
 tans, the Anglo-Saxons certainly showed less skill 
 in making use of them. 
 
 Taking one thing with another, we cannot say 
 that, apart from the baneful influence of super- 
 stition, the old English Leech Book of the tenth 
 century was inferior to the Latin Salernitan treatise 
 of the eleventh. No treatise of the School of 
 Salerno contemporaneous with the Leech Book is 
 known, so that the Anglo-Saxons had the credit of 
 priority. Their Leech Book was the first medical 
 treatise written in Western Europe which can be 
 said to belong to modern history, that is, which was 
 produced after the decadence and decline of the 
 classical medicine, which belongs to ancient history.
 
 LAST PERIOD OF A.-S. MEDICINE 157 
 
 Admitting that it is impossible to draw the line 
 between ancient and modern, and recognizing also 
 the many crudities and imperfections of our 
 earliest English work on medicine, it seems fair to 
 regard it, in a sense, as the embryo of modern 
 English medicine, and at all events, the earliest 
 medical treatise produced by any of the modern 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 LAST PERIOD OF ANGLO-SAXON MEDICINE 
 
 I have said that we have no materials for a con- 
 tinuous history of Anglo-Saxon medicine. We are 
 guided from one epoch to another, with wide inter- 
 vals, mainly by the fragmentary remains of medical 
 literature. Therefore we are unable to say whether 
 English medicine changed its character as time 
 went on, in the latter part of the Anglo-Saxon rule, 
 or under the first Norman kings. We know that, 
 even before the Conquest, there was increasing 
 intercourse between England and the continent, 
 especially Normandy. The influence of Norman 
 culture and habits was considerable, and increased 
 during the reign of Edward the Confessor, especially 
 in ecclesiastical matters. But I cannot find evidence 
 of any such influence in medical science, in which 
 the Normans had little or nothing to teach the 
 English. Beyond the one or two French words 
 found in the last of the old English medical books, 
 there is nothing Norman in the Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine. 
 
 There is, however, one occurrence recorded in the
 
 158 LECTURE II: PART III 
 
 reign of Edward the Confessor, which, perhaps, has 
 some significance, namely, that the last of the old 
 Anglo-Saxon kings chose as his personal physician 
 Baldwin, a French monk of St. Denis, afterwards 
 Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds. 
 
 This choice was only in accordance with the well- 
 known partiality of Edward the Confessor for 
 Norman or French culture ; but shows perhaps that 
 the old Anglo-Saxon medicine was going out of 
 favour in high quarters. I have not been able to 
 discover the names of the physicians of any earlier 
 Saxon kings, nor any evidence that there was any 
 definite office called that of Eoyal Physician. Bald- 
 win is, therefore, the first Koyal Physician of whom 
 I can find any definite record. He continued to 
 discharge the same functions as physician to William 
 the Conqueror. 
 
 HEALING BY THE ROYAL TOUCH 
 
 There is one question of medical interest connec- 
 ted with the reign of Edward the Confessor, that is 
 the alleged miraculous healing by that monarch of 
 scrofula, called in later times the King's evil. It 
 is commonly stated that the sainted King first dis- 
 played the peculiar power claimed for the Kings 
 of England of curing a patient afflicted with this 
 disease, and founded the special ceremony or 
 service of the * Healing ' afterwards used. But the 
 story of King Edward's having cured a patient 
 with this disease by his touch, is first found in the 
 Gesta Eegum of William of Malmesbury, written some
 
 HEALING BY THE ROYAL TOUCH 159 
 
 eighty years later ; and even there no special stress 
 is laid upon this case, which is only one of several 
 miraculous cures ascribed to the King. The story 
 has the familiar features of the legends of miracles 
 of healing by the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics, 
 saints or kings, as we find them in the his- 
 tories and chronicles from Bede onwards. There 
 is, therefore, no real historical evidence to connect 
 Edward the Confessor with the introduction of 
 healing by the royal touch, and we are relieved 
 from the obligation to discuss further what is in 
 itself a very interesting subject 1 . 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 When in reading the life of some eminent man 
 we come near to the record of his death, it is not 
 without a certain feeling of melancholy ; though the 
 event may be well known to us, and happened long 
 ago. So in approaching the close of Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine we feel that we cannot part without regret 
 from a national school of science which had done 
 much and had promised still more. 
 
 As we have seen, the old English medicine was 
 not immediately crushed by the Norman Conquest, 
 
 1 William Beckett, an able surgeon of the time of George I, 
 seems to have been the first seriously to criticize these stories in 
 his tract on Touching for the cure of the King's evil (London, 
 1722), where he gives several original documents. Why one par- 
 ticular disease, scrofula, came to be regarded as specially amenable 
 to cure by the royal touch, is not shown by Beckett, and, so far as 
 I know, has never been satisfactorily explained.
 
 160 LECTURE II: CONCLUSION 
 
 any more than the old English literature. The 
 Anglo-Saxon medical school still continued to be 
 productive till the middle of the twelfth century ; 
 and this was also the final date of the last historical 
 record in old English, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
 of which the last entry was made in the year 1154. 
 After this the old English ceased to be a literary 
 language, and ceased also to be the language of 
 science. 
 
 Thus it is easy to see why the Anglo-Saxon 
 medicine, though not destroyed, was neglected and 
 forgotten. The Normans, being unable to read the 
 old English books, regarded them as useless lumber. 
 Their own learned works were written exclusively 
 in Latin, the universal learned language of the 
 continent. Moreover, as is well known, the English 
 monks, who must have constituted a large propor- 
 tion of the leeches, were often turned out of their 
 monasteries to make room for Norman and French 
 votaries. Thus the Norman reigned in the schools, 
 and Latin, with which the invaders were more 
 conversant than the English were, prevailed uni- 
 versally. When the gates were once opened the 
 Latin world came in like a flood, under which the 
 old English literature and science were submerged. 
 
 I cannot pretend to estimate the far-reaching 
 results of thus bringing in continental culture to the 
 insular English. But I must venture to say that, in 
 medicine at least, this did not mean the introduction 
 of higher culture or deeper learning. The Norman 
 physicians had little or nothing to teach the English.
 
 CONCLUSION 161 
 
 They had more regular schools of medicine ; but 
 whether they were better practitioners we cannot 
 say. As to their actual knowledge, they were at 
 that tune merely living on the remnants of Greek 
 and Latin medicine, which the Anglo-Saxons also 
 had known how to assimilate. In knowledge of 
 herbs they must have been inferior to the English. 
 No new element was brought into medical science 
 till the introduction of Latin versions of Arabian 
 medical works, and of the Arabic translations from 
 the Greek, transformed the whole of European 
 medicine ; and this change was not effected till more 
 than a century after the Norman Conquest. 
 
 The old English book-language emerged again, 
 as we know, after its temporary eclipse by French 
 and Latin, and gave birth to our great English 
 literature. But the old English medicine never 
 rose again. When a national medical literature 
 appeared again in England, in the works of such 
 men as Gilbert, Gaddesden, and John of Arderne, 
 it was written almost entirely in Latin. 
 
 We can, however, trace some survival of the old 
 Anglo-Saxon medicine throughout the Middle Ages 
 in the works of popular medicine, written in Eng- 
 lish, and known as Medicine Books or Leech Books, 
 of which a large number survive, in manuscript, in 
 the British Museum and elsewhere. Few of them 
 have been printed 1 . 
 
 1 I know only the Mittelenglisches Medizinbuch, edited by 
 F. Heinrich, Halle, 1896, 8vo, and Medical Works of the Four- 
 teenth Century, brought out by the Rev. George Henslow, London,
 
 162 LECTURE II: CONCLUSION 
 
 Like the old leechdoms, they consist merely of 
 collections of receipts, recommending herbs and 
 other drugs, with a large number of charms. Many 
 of the herbal prescriptions and of the charms can 
 be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon Leech Books. 
 Nor did this tradition die out in the Middle Ages. 
 We find an obscure herbal medicine, distinct from 
 the more learned medicine of the regular doctors, 
 still flourishing in the sixteenth century and after the 
 introduction of printing, preserved in the obscurer 
 books called Herbals (to be distinguished from the 
 learned herbals of Turner, Lyte, and Gerarde). 
 In the seventeenth century Culpepper and his fol- 
 lowers, though they repudiated charms, were the 
 successors of the herbalists. Even in our own day 
 there exists a popular herbal medicine, strangely 
 combined with the use of charms and magical 
 ceremonies of very ancient origin, which still holds 
 its place in popular belief. In this corrupt and 
 undignified form we may still trace some features 
 of the old Anglo-Saxon medicine. 
 
 1899, 4to, with some texts of later date, published by the Early 
 English Text Society. Some receipts were printed in Wright and 
 Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, 1841-3, 2 vols. 
 
 Oxford : Printed at the Clarendon Press, by HORACE HART, M.A.
 
 FIG. i. Haven's Leek, or Satyrion Orchis, from Anglo-Saxon 
 MS. version of the Herbarium of Apuleius (B. Mus. Cotton, Vitollius 
 C. iii, fol. 27). A.-S. L., Vol. I, p. loy. See j>. 6y.
 
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 "sT'o' 
 
 M>
 
 J''u;. 4. Mandragora, witli the dog, as improved by au English 
 artist. From B. Mus. MS. Sloane 1975, tliirteentli century. Copied 
 from figure in MS. Harlcv 1585. See p. 66 (note , p. 63 ;note), and 
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 FIG. 10. Herb called Hcliotropioii, or Solago minor, difficult to 
 identify ; with a scorpion and snake ti^hting'. From the A-S. MS. 
 Apuleius, fol. 40. A.-S. L., \'ol. 1, p. 169.
 
 FIG. ii. 'Nadder Wort,' Basilisca, or Eegia, a herb not identified; with three 
 royal serpents or basilisks. For description see A.-S."L., Vol. I, p. 243. From the 
 A.-S. Apuleius, fol. 57.
 
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 FIG. 21. Aristolochia, or 'Smear Wort'; A. Clematitis. From MS. Harley 1585, 
 col. 70. A.-S. L., Vol. I, p. 115. This is a climbing plant, spread out on a sort of 
 frame ; and illustrates the endeavour of the artist to turn the figure into a decorative 
 object, with consequent loss of realism; as also seen in Figs. 19 and 20. See p. 78.
 
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 BPU JUL 26 "338 
 
 KC'DMAR 041991 
 
 IK'lJUN 91992
 
 Date Due
 
 3 1970 00016 6048 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAUIBRWY FACILITY 
 
 111 111! IIMI 1111! I' 11 "' " 
 
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