A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 1 (of 2) by Lynn Thorndike

ANGLO-SAXON, SALERNITAN, AND OTHER LATIN MEDICINE IN MANUSCRIPTS FROM THE NINTH TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY Plan of this chapter—Instances of early medieval additions to ancient medicine—_Leech-Book of Bald and Cild_—Magical procedure and incantations—A superstitious compound—Summary—Cauterization—Treatment of demoniacs—Incantations and characters—In a twelfth century manuscript—Magic with a split hazel rod—More incantations and the virtues of a vulture—_Lots of the saints_—Superstitious veterinary and medical practice—Two Paris manuscripts—Blood-letting—Resemblances to Egerton 821—Virtues of blood—Pious incantations and magical procedure—More superstitious veterinary practice—The School of Salerno—Was Salernitan medicine free from superstition?—The _Practica_ of Petrocellus—Its sources—Fourfold origin of medicine—Therapeutics of Petrocellus—The _Regimen Salernitanum_—Its superstition—The _Practica_ of Archimatthaeus—A Salernitan treatise of about 1200—The wives of Salerno. [Sidenote: Plan of this chapter.] In this chapter our purpose is to treat of early medieval medicine as distinct on the one hand from post-classical medicine, to which we have already devoted a chapter, and on the other hand from later medieval medicine as affected by translations from the Arabic and other oriental influence. Perhaps one of the outcomes of our discussion will be to suggest that any such distinctions cannot be at all sharply or chronologically drawn. However, the writings which we shall discuss now are contained mainly in manuscripts dating from the ninth to the twelfth century, although some of them may have been first composed at an earlier date than that of the manuscript in which they chance to be preserved. Some are in Anglo-Saxon; more, in Latin. Some it has been customary to classify under the caption of Salernitan. We shall postpone until the next chapter our consideration of Constantinus Africanus, although the dates of his life fall within the eleventh century, because he already at that early date represents the