Mysteries of the vital element in connexion with dreams, somnambulism, trance, vital photography, faith and will, anaesthesia, nervous congestion and creative function : modern spiritualism explained / by Robert H. Collyer.

  • Collyer, Robert H.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mysteries of the vital element in connexion with dreams, somnambulism, trance, vital photography, faith and will, anaesthesia, nervous congestion and creative function : modern spiritualism explained / by Robert H. Collyer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    comatose state was connected with the mysterious ceremonies and customs of the priest and the magician. The Egyptians, in their ceremonies of initiation into the mysteries, used a soporific cake, composed of honey and medicated grains, (medicatis fnogibus). In the mysteries of Trophonius (who was said to have been nursed by Ceres, that is, to have derived his rites from the Eleusinian), the initiated carried trie same sort of medicated cake to appease the serpents (Pythons) they met in their passage, so as to cast them into a slumber. Tertullian, who attributes all the mysteries to the devil, and makes him the author of what passes there, men- tions the offering of these cakes, celebrat et panis oblationem. This was, no doubt, made of poppy seeds with honey, the same as the medicatis frugibus. The priestess of Yenus is made to prepare the same treat for the dragon who guarded the Hesperian fruit. The poppy juice was always given to those, who were to undergo the ceremony of initiation into the mysteries. Plutarch speaks of a shrub called Leucophyllus, used in the celebration of the mysteries of Hecate, which threw men into a kind of frenzy, and made them confess their innermost thoughts. Medicine, priestcraft, and magic were practised only by those who had entered the temple. The Greeks, who borrowed their ceremonies and practices from the Egyptians, used the Atropa Mandragorato allay pain. Some persons, according to Dioscorides, and his commentator Matthiolus, boil the root of mandrake in wine down to a third part, and preserve the decoction, of which they administer a cyathus (about a fluid ounce and a half), to produce sleep, and to allay severe pains of any part; and also before operations with the knife, or the application of the actual cautery, that the operation should not be felt. Dodineus also affirms that if the wine of mandrake be admi- nistered before the application of the cautery, no pain is expe- rienced. A celebrated Chinese physician, Moatho, about the third century, gave to his patients a preparation of Cannabis Indica. In a short time they became insensible, during which state he made incisions, amputations, or removed the cause of disease. Pliny mentions that Roman surgeons employed a marble powder from Cairo called Memphetis. This powder, he says, when mixed with vinegar, causes such numbness to the parts where it is applied, that it can be cut or cauterized without the patient feeling the least pain (obstupescit ita corpus nee sentit cruciatum). Dioscorides recalls the same fact, and says, this stone of Memphis,