Bernard had washed his
hands. Flowers which had rested on the tomb of a saint, when
steeped in water, were supposed to be especially effiacious in
various diseases. The pulpit everywhere dwelt with unction on the
reality of fetich cures, and among the choice stories collected
by Archbishop Jacques de Vitry for the use of preachers was one
which, judging from its frequent recurrence in monkish
literature, must have sunk deep into the popular mind: "Two lazy
beggars, one blind, the other lame, try to avoid the relics of
St. Martin, borne about in procession, so that they may not be
healed and lose their claim to alms. The blind man takes the lame
man on his shoulders to guide him, but they are caught in the
crowd and healed against their will."[[41]]
Very important also throughout the Middle Ages were the
medical virtues attributed to saliva. The use of this remedy had
early Oriental sanction. It is clearly found in Egypt. Pliny
devotes a considerable part of one of his chapters to it; Galen
approved it; Vespasian, when he visited Alexandria, is said to
have cured a blind man by applying saliva to his eves; but the
great example impressed most forcibly upon the medieval mind was
the use of it ascribed in the fourth Gospel to Jesus himself:
thence it came not only into Church ceremonial, but largely into
medical practice.
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