Book 12, Chapter 12: The opinion of Ferrarius touching charmes, periapts, appensions, amulets, &c. Of Homericall medicines, of constant opinion, and the effects thereof
1 Argerius Ferrarius, a physician in these daies of great account, doth saie, that for somuch as by no diet nor physicke anie disease can be so taken awaie or extinguished, but that certeine dregs and relikes will remaine: therefore physicians use physicall alligations, appensions, periapts, amulets, charmes, characters, &c, which he supposeth maie doo good; but harme he is sure they can doo none: urging that it is necessarie and expedient for a physician to leave nothing undone that may be devised for his patients recoverie; and that by such meanes manie great cures are done. He citeth a great number of experiments out of Alexander Trallianus, Aetius, Octavianus, Marcellus, Philodotus, Archigines, Philostratus, Plinie, and Dioscorides; and would make men beleeve that Galen (who in truth despised and derided all those vanities) recanted in his latter daies his former opinion, and all his invectives tending against these magicall cures: writing also a booke intituled De Homerica medicatione, which no man could ever see, but one Alexander Trallianus, who saith he saw it: and further affirmeth, that it is an honest mans part to cure the sicke, by hooke or by crooke, or by anie meanes whatsoever.
2 Yea he saith that Galen (who indeed wrote and taught that Incantamenta sunt muliercularum figmenta, and be the onlie clokes of bad physicians) affirmeth, that there is vertue and great force in incantations. As for example (saith Trallian) Galen being now reconciled to this opinion, holdeth and writeth, that the bones which sticke in ones throte, are avoided and cast out with the violence of charmes and inchanting words; yea and that thereby the stone, the chollicke, the falling sicknes, and all fevers, gowts, fluxes, fistulas, issues of bloud, and finallie whatsoever cure (even beyond the skill of himselfe or anie other foolish physician) is cured and perfectlie healed by words of inchantment. Marie M. Ferrarius (although he allowed and practised this kind of physicke) yet he protesteth that he thinketh it none otherwise effectuall, than by the waie of constant opinion: so as he affirmeth that neither the character, nor the charme, nor the witch, nor the devill accomplish the cure; as (saith he) the experiment of the toothach will manifestlie declare, wherein the cure is wrought by the confidence or diffidence as well of the patient, as of the agent; according to the poets saieng:
3 Nos habitat non tartara, sed nec sidera cœli, Spiritus in nobis qui viget illa facit.
4 Not hellish furies dwell in us, Nor starres with influence heavenlie; The spirit that lives and rules in us, Doth every thing ingeniouslie,
5 This (saith he) commeth to the unlearned, through the opinion which they conceive of the characters and holie words: but the learned that know the force of the mind and imagination, worke miracles by meanes thereof; so as the unlearned must have externall helps, to doo that which the learned can doo with a word onelie. He saith that this is called Homerica medicatio, bicause Homer discovered the bloud of the word suppressed, and the infections healed by or in mysteries.
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