prayer on a piece
of wood, wash it off with water, and cause the patient to drink the
solution.[49:1] Mungo Park, while in West Africa, was once asked by his
landlord, a Bambarra native, to prepare such a charm, the latter
proffering his writing-board for the purpose. The traveller complied,
and the negro, while repeating a prayer, washed the writing off with
water, drank the mixture, and then licked the board dry, in his anxiety
to derive the greatest possible benefit from the writing.[49:2]

The eating of the paper on which a prescription has been written is
still a common expedient for the cure of disease in Tibet, where the
Lamas use written spells, known as "edible letters."[50:1] The paper
containing cabalistic words and symbols, taken internally, constitutes
the remedy, and through its influence on the imagination is probably
more beneficial to the patient than are most of the so-called "bitters"
and patent medicines of the present day.

So likewise, when a Chinese physician cannot procure the drugs which he
desires in a particular case, he writes the names of these drugs on a
piece of paper, which the patient is expected to eat;[50:2] and this
mode of treatment is considered quite as satisfactory as the swallowing
of the medicine itself. Sometimes a charm is burned over a cup of water,
and the ashes stirred in, and drunk by the patient, while in other cases
it is pasted upon the part of the body affected.[50:3]

In eastern countries generally, remedial qualities are ascribed to water
drunk out of a cup or bowl, whose inner surface is inscribed with
religious or mystical verses; and specimens of such drinking-vessels
have been unearthed in Babylonia within recent years. The magic
medicine-bowls, still used in the Orient, usually bear inscriptions from
the Koran.[50:4] In Flora Annie Steel's tale of the Indian Mutiny of
1857, "On the Face of the Waters" (p. 293), we read of a native who was
treated for a cut over the eye by being dosed with paper pills inscribed
with the name of Providence.

Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh (1810-1882) reported the case of a laboring
man affected with colic, for whom he prescribed some medicine, directing
him to "take it and return in a fortnight," assuring him that he would
soon be quite well. At the appointed time the man returned, entirely
relieved and jubilant. The doctor was gratified at the manifest
improvement in his patient's condition, and asked to see the
prescription wh