t because they could effect direct physical changes, but
because they brought the patient into a better frame of mind. We know
that nervous affections were very prevalent in those times among the
ignorant masses of the people, and verbal charms were doubtless of value
in furnishing therapeutic mental impulses. The Germanic sooth-saying
physicians maintained that every bodily ailment could be cured by the
use of magical spells and enchanted herbs. The medieval charlatan
oculists inherited ancient medical formulas, by means of which they
professed to treat with success ophthalmic disorders. Their methods
included the recitation of ritualistic words, accompanied with suitable
gestures, and passes over the affected eyes.[42:2]

In Cotta's "Short Discoverie of the Unobserved Dangers of several sorts
of Ignorant and Unconsiderate Practisers of Physicke in England" (1612)
occur the following passages, quoted also by Brand, in "Popular
Antiquities of Great Britain."[42:3]

If there be any good or use unto the health by _spels_, they
have that prerogative by accident, and by the power and vertue
of fancie. If fancie then be the foundation whereupon buildeth
the good of spels, spels must needs be as fancies are,
uncertaine and vaine. So must also, by consequent, be their
use and helpe, and no lesse all they that trust unto
them. . . . How can religion or reason suffer men that are
not void of both, to give such impious credit unto an
insignificant and senseless mumbling of idle words contrary to
reason, without president of any truly wise or learned, and
justly suspected of all sensible men?

In the early part of the seventeenth century, many diseases were
regarded in the light of magic seizures. Therefore they were not
amenable to treatment by _materia medica_. More could be accomplished
through the patient's faith and imagination.

"Physicians," wrote the German scholar, Valentine Schindler, "do not
discover and learn everything that they ought to know, in the
universities; they have often to go to old wives, gypsies, masters of
the Black Art, old peasant-folk, and learn from them. For these people
have more knowledge of such things, than all the colleges and
universities."[43:1]

The influence of technical language on the uneducated patient is
exemplified in the effect produced on his mind by the mention of Latin
names. The writer was impressed with this fact while e