oticeable that not age but youth is now honored, and to-day only
calves' feet are accorded medicinal value.

Fort[126] gives the following account of the origin of cabbalism:
"Towards the close of the fourth century an unknown scholiast
collected the exegetical elucidations, explanations and
interpretations produced by the Gemara, and united them to the Mishna,
as a commentary out of which arose the Talmud. The word 'cabbala,'
whose original significance was used in the sense of reception, or
transmission, obtained at a later period the meaning of secret lore,
because the metaphysical and theosophic idealities which had been
developed in the Rabbinical schools, were communicated only to a few,
and consequently remained the undisputed property of a limited and
close organization." From this there developed a varied and
complicated system of words and numbers which showed their power in
all forms of magical marvels. Not the least common or puissant of
these was the healing of the sick.

Knots were sometimes used as charms, and Cockayne gives us an example
in the preface of _Saxon Leechdoms_: "As soon as a man gets pain in
his eyes, tie in unwrought flax as many knots as there are letters in
his name, pronouncing them as you go, and tie it round his neck."

Long before and long after New Testament days when Jesus used spittle
on the blind, and the time when Vespasian healed the blind by the same
means, spittle was considered a most efficacious remedy for various
diseases. Levinus Lemnius tells us: "Divers experiments shew what
power and quality there is in Man's fasting Spittle, when he hath
neither eat nor drunk before the use of it: for it cures all tetters,
itch, scabs, pushes, and creeping sores: and if venomous little beasts
have fastened on any part of the body, as hornets, beetles, toads,
spiders, and such like, that by their venome cause tumours and great
pains and inflammations, do but rub the place with fasting Spittle,
and all those effects will be gone and dispersed. Since the qualities
and effects of Spittle come from the humours, (for out of them is it
drawn by the faculty of Nature, as Fire draws distilled Water from
hearbs) the reason may be easily understood why Spittle should do such
strange things, and destroy some creatures."[127]

In _Saxon Leechdoms_ a cure for gout runs thus: "Before getting out of
bed in the morning, spit on your hand, rub all your sinuews, and say,
'Flee, gout, flee,' etc." Sir