Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

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FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM.
" on account of his admirable experience and skill," the
clergy of the city joined in a protest, declaring that " it were
better to die with Christ than to be cured by a Jew doctor
aided by the devil." Still, in their extremity, bishops, car-
dinals, kings, and even popes, insisted on calling in physicians
of the hated race.*
VIII. FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM. THE ROYAL
TOUCH.
The Reformation made no sudden change in the sacred
theory of medicine. Luther, as is well known, again and
again ascribed his own diseases to " devils' spells," declaring
that " Satan produces all the maladies which afflict man-
:^ind, for he is the prince of death," and that "he poisons
the air "
; but that " no malady comes from God." From
that day down to the faith cures of Boston, Old Orchard,
among the sect of " "
Peculiar People in our own time,
ive see the results among Protestants of seeking the cause
of disease in Satanic influence and its cure in fetichism.
* For the general subject of the influence of theological ideas upon medicine,
ee Fort, History of Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, New York, 1883,
:haps. xiii andxviii ; also Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire des Reliques, passim ; also
^ambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation franfaise, Paris, 1885, vol. i, chap, xviii ;
-Iso Sprengel, vol. ii, p. 345, and elsewhere ; also Baas and others. For proofs that
he School of Salerno was not founded by the monks, Benedictine or other, but by
aymen, who left out a faculty of theology from their organization, see Haeser,
Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin, vol. i, p. 646 ; also Baas. For a very striking
jtatement that married professors, women, and Jews were admitted to professional
ihairs, see Baas, pp. 208 et seq. ; also summary by Dr. Payne, article in the Encyc.
3rit. Sprengel's old theory that the school was founded by Benedictines seems now
La Mdde-
;. fntirely given up ; see Haeser and Baas on the subject ; also Daremberg,
j^, p, 133. For the citation from Gregory of Tours, see his Hist. Francorum,
ib. vi. For the eminence of Jewish physicians and proscription of them, see Beu-
rnot, Les Juifs d' Occident, Paris, 1824, pp: 76-94 ; also Bedarride, Les Juifs en
''
France, en Italic, et en Espagne, chaps, v, viii, x, and xiii also ; Renouard, Histoire
^\e la M^decine, Paris, 1846, tome i, p. 439 ; also, especially, Lammert, Volksmedi-
in, etc., in Bayern, p. 6, note. For Church decrees against them, see the Acta Con-
iliorum, ed. Hardouin, vol. x, pp. 1634, 1700, 1870, 1973, etc. For denunciations
,f them by Geiler and others, see Kotelmarin, Gesundheitspflege im Mittelalter, pp.
^ 194, 195. For a list of kings and popes who persisted in having Jewish physicians
ind for other curious information of the sort, see Prof. Levi of Vercelli, Cristiani
_j p Ebrei nel Medio Evo, pp. 200-207 I and for a very valuable summary, see Lecky,
Jistory of Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii, pp. 265-271.
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