Note 28 — MAGIC, MAGIA, MATEIA,

It is clearly shewn by the earliest records, that the ancients were in the possession of many powerful remedies; thus Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is said to have cured one of the Argonauts of sterility, by administering the rust of iron in wine for ten days; and the same physician used Hellebore as a purge, on the daughters of King Prœtus, who were afflicted with melancholy. Venesection was also a remedy of very early origin, for Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, or a preparation of the poppy, was certainly known in the earliest ages; and it was probably opium that Helen mixed with wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name of nepenthe, (Odyss. Δ,) to drive away their cares, and increase their hilarity; and this conjecture receives much support from the fact, that the nepenthe of Homer was obtained from the Egyptian Thebes, (whence the Tincture of Opium has been called Thebaic Tincture;) and if the opinion of Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumæan Sibyll never sat on the portending tripod without first swallowing a few drops of the juice of the cherry-laurel.

“At Phœbi nondum Patiens, immanis in antro,

Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit

Excussisse deum: tanto magis ille fategat

Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.”

Æneid, l. vi. v. 78.

There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic during the display of their oracular powers, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of Prussic acid. Monardus tells us, that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or caciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke which they thus produced in their mouths, in consequence of which they fell down upon the ground; and that after having remained for some time in a stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during their supposed intercourse with the world of spirits. The sedative powers of the garden lettuce were known in the earliest times. Among the fables of antiquity we read, that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself upon a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief and repress her desires. The sea onion, or squill, was administered by the Egyptians in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the Eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to wounds, was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.