20. The Thaumaturgeb

The remedies which they prescribe are often strange or ridiculous, but on this account are so much more effectual, for they exact and realize more faith on the part of patients and operators. An old merchant of our acquaintance, a man of eccentric character and exalted religious sentiment, after retiring from business, set himself to practise occult medicine, gratuitously and out of Christian charity, in one of the Departments of France. His sole specifics were oil, insufflations and prayers. The institution of a lawsuit against him for the illegal exercise of medicine established in public knowledge that ten thousand cures had been attributed to him in the space of about five years, and that the number of his believers increased in proportions calculated to alarm all the doctors of the district. We saw also at Mans a poor nun who was regarded as slightly demented, but she healed nevertheless all diseases in the surrounding country by means of an elixir and plaster of her own invention. The elixir was taken internally, the plaster was applied outwardly, so that nothing escaped this universal panacea. The plaster never adhered to the skin save at the place where its application was necessary, and it rolled up and fell off by itself -such at least was asserted by the good sister and declared to be the case by the sufferers. This thaumaturge was also subjected to prosecution, for she impoverished the practice of all the doctors round about her; she was cloistered rigidly, but it was soon found necessary to produce her at least once a week, and on the day for her consultations we have seen Sister Jane-Frances surrounded by the country folk, who had arrived overnight, awaiting their turn, lying at the convent gate. They had slept upon the ground and tarried only to receive the elixir and plaster of the devoted sister. The remedy being the same in all diseases, it would appear needless for her to be acquainted with the cases of her patients, but she listened to them invariably with great attention and only dispensed her specific after learning the nature of the complaint. There was the magical secret. The direction of the intention imparted its special virtue to the remedy, which was insignificant in itself. The elixir was aromatic brandy mixed with the juice of bitter herbs; the plaster was a compound analogous to theriac as regards colour and smell; it was possibly electuary Burgundy pitch, but whatever the substance, it worked wonders, and the wrath of the rural folk would have been visited on those who questioned the miracles of their nun. Near Paris also we knew of an old thaumaturgic gardener who accomplished marvellous cures by putting in his phials the juice of all the herbs of St. John. He had, however, a sceptical brother who derided the sorcerer, and the poor gardener, overwhelmed by the sarcasms of this infidel, began to doubt himself, whereupon all the miracles ceased, the sufferers lost confidence and the thaumaturge, slandered and despairing, died mad. The Abbe Thiers, cure of Vibraie, in his curious Treatise concerning Superstitions, records that a woman, afflicted with an apparently aggravated ophthalmia, having been suddenly and mysteriously cured, confessed to a priest that she had betaken herself to Magic. She had long importuned a clerk, whom she regarded as a magician, to give her a talisman that she might wear, and he had at length delivered her a scroll of parchment, advising her at the same time to wash three times daily in fresh water. The priest made her give up the parchment, on which were these words: Eruat diabolus oculos tuos et repleat stercoribus loca vacantia. He translated them to the good woman, who was stupefied; but, all the same, she was cured.