Epistula Vultaris, Medical and Magical Recipes of the Vulture

It has been too long since my last post--tomorrow will be two months past. I've been busy writing a post on the spleen (a western and eastern perspective) and researching and writing for a larger essay about the magic and myth associated with ancient and modern medicine--esp. Chinese Medicine and its use of acupuncture for mental conditions (I prefaced this article with an earlier post here about the Ghost Points). I want to add a quick post here as a sort of resuscitation. I will be updating soon with the first half of the spleen post, but now I want to just add some notes of interest. Notes from some articles I've found interesting. And naturally, they pertain to the subject of Magic, myth and medicine.

The following post concerns an article I can't stop re-reading. It was published in the Oct 1943 publication of Speculum, vol. 18, No. 4 and it is about an unpublished treatise on medicine and magic from the age of Charlemagne--in fact, that's the full title--found in the back of a book in a great library in France. There is no mention of who found the letter or when or how the author (Loren C. Mackinney), who is also the translator of this Latin text, got possession of the piece. Being a well respected Scholar of Medieval Medicine, I suppose that one afternoon an envelope lined with cardboard and with a return address to the Paris Biblioteque Nationale found itself upon Dr. Mackinney's desk. His scholarship in the article is focused primarily of the list of magical and medical recipes and its comparative history.

As stated previously, this one-page treatise, titled Epistula Vulturis, was found in a medical manuscript in the Paris Biblioteque Nationale and contained the listing of 17 magical/medical recipes compounded from the various parts of a vulture and other substances. Researchers don't know who wrote the piece, or if these were just notes from a curious reader who left there research on a blank page near the end of Book I of Dioscoride's Materia Medica. Nearly half of the recipes included in this treatise, says MacKinney, closely resemble the passages from Natural History, published in the first century and written by the Roman naturalist and philosopher, Pliny the Elder (or Gaius Plinius Secundus). However the wording is more contemporary, he says, to the sixth-century writings of Sextus Placitus Papyrensis--particularly his Book of Medicine from Animals, Cattle, Beasts and Birds. But this accounts for only seven of the recipes. The other ten recipes are not found in any of the Roman handbook, which means they were undoubtedly a record of the unwritten folk medicine and magic of that period. So it's very probable that whoever wrote this small treatise was not making notes from the texts and neglected his research but rather slipped this paper gem against the gutter of Dioscoride's Materia Medica as a sort of preservation of culture.

The following is the translation of the letter by the late Professor of medieval history and specialist of medieval medical history, Loren C. Mackinny:

(Translation)
INCIPIT EPISTULA VULTURIS or
HERE BEGINS THE LETTER OF THE VULTURE

To the Province of Babylonia Alexandria, greeting from the King of Rome. The human race does not know how much virtue the vulture has in it and how much it contributes to healing. At the hour at which it is captured, kill it, using a sharp reed instead of a sword. Let him who kills it be alone, and before he decapitates it, let him say to it : "Angel Adonai Abraham, on your account the word is completed." And when you cut it open you will do well to repeat the above mentioned words.

[recipes:]

1. The bones from its head (wrapped) in deer skin will cure every pain and migraine (of the head).
2. Its brain you mix with the best of oil and put in the nose, and it will expel all ailments of the head.
3. Wrap the eyes in wolf skin and hang around the neck and it will drive away pain from the eye.
4. If you put its tongue in the right shoe and walk with it (thus) all your enemies will adore you.
5. Its gall mixed with SUGAR OF FENNEL and HOREHOUND and with OIL OF BALSAM and ATTIC HONEY, you apply in the morning, and presently it will relieve all pain in the eyes.
6. Its liver you beat with its blood and ATTIC HONEY and give thrice for seven mornings, and it will heal all epileptics and lunatics and will drive out fear.
7. Its blood purges the itch.
8. You dry its spleen and afterwards mix it with BITUMEN OF SULPHUR and OIL OF COPPER and OLD AXEL GREASE, and if you use it as an ointment it will cure paralysis.
9. You burn its lung with NETTLE and BARK OF MALAGUETTA and of ROSE in equal amounts and give it for fever; verily it will cure you.
10. You mix it (?) with MUST and CITRON for one who is impotent and he will be healed.
11. You dry and beat its little kidneys and testicles and give with wine, to him who is unable to have intercourse with his wife, and he will find remedy.
12. If you wrap its heart in lion or wolf skin (and place around the neck of one possessed) all demons will flee and if you fall among thieves (while you have it) they will adore you.
13. Its wings are valuable for many things. If you bind them on the left foot of a woman who is unable to bring forth, she will be speedily delivered; and when she has brought forth, quickly take it away (i.e. the vulture wing) lest her viscera follow.
14. If you secretly fumigate (with vulture wings) anyone's home which is being troubled, all evil will flee from it.
15. Its feet and claws lying in your home will prevent sorcery from being done there. And if it has been done formerly it will have no effect.
16. If you cook its grease with OIL OF COPPER and WAX, it will heal the sinews.
17. And if you anoint with it (i.e. the grease) a yoke animal which you plan to sell, on that day you will receive (your) price for it. Finit finit.

A pretty thorough list of recipes long out of vogue. I wonder though, about the efficacy of these healing modalities. I can't imagine the National Health Organization--through their department of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) research--funding for double-blind studies on the healing potentials of vulture parts. Granted, most of these recipes are more magical than medical, but it is a peek into a world where magic and medicine were interchangeable and mythic. In a world where illness and disease is attributed to devils and sorcery why wouldn't it be a magic called medicine that would exercise the body of those pernicious influences?


We've come a long way to broaden the divide between magic and medicine by classifying the body and it various properties and functions into repeatable patterns for future identification. This system of repeatable familiarity is comforting to us. This is logical thinking, this is real to us. But should we discredit the lore of the vulture's magic and medicine as superstitious, as pseudo-scientific and therefore ineffective? The vulture's spleen, some bitumen of sulphur, some copper oil and old axle grease, may not sound like the most obvious cure for paralysis, but imagine the millions of tax payer dollars we'd save from stem-cell research if we could show the efficacy of this one simple recipe? The more I think about it though, the more the idea of harvesting spleens from government regulated vulture farms makes me want to march in protest. Okay, that's where I put my foot down. Leave the vultures alone.

Magic in Medicine and the 13 Ghost Points

I am no scholar of the history of medicine or the anthropological etymology of traditional healing practices around the world, but I can guess that the medicine of early human was a split between the heroics of emergency care and the magical battle against the demons of disease. It was Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's improvements on the microscope and his subsequent studies of microbiology that lead to germ theory and immunology that faltered these supernatural conclusions. Now we use words like bacteria and virus, autoimmune disorder to describe the monsters that, seasonally or otherwise, usurp our body and mind. Most of us cannot see demons or devils or ghosts so we dismiss the notion as superstition and therefore not of physical importance. But we can at various magnifications witness, study and categorize the germs representing these superstitions. No longer do we count on the shaman's communion with the Spirits and our ancestors to intervene to exorcise the pernicious influence out from our body. It is pharmaceutical science we believe in, it is pharmaceutical science that works. But was the treatment by the shaman or the priest any less effective than our modern science? Was the non-scientific understanding of the clinical nature of the devil-for-pathogen any less accurate than the science of how a pathogenic enzyme weakens a cell wall thus allowing a virus, say, to hijack the cell in order to industrialize its "evil" genetic material? A devil by another name doesn't sound so sweet; but, really, were our ancient brothers and sisters of the healing arts off the mark when they considered our spiritual and mental delinquencies a correlation--if not a direct cause--of the ghosts and devils that ravaged our well being?

Let's consider the human form. It is a sack of ghastly viscera held between an armature of cartilage and bone; it is a machine of complicated circulatory pumps and muscular devices able to manipulate matter and do work; it is a material construct of a spiritual consciousness; it is a biological super-bug; it is alive. Regardless of how we approach the object of us and its function, we understand it as comprised of three elements: the body, the mind and the spirit and as a result of the balance between the communion of these three, susceptible to illness.

Chinese Medicine is one of many medical traditions that embrace this natural trinity when considering the health of each patient. Of course it is not without its history of demonized conditions exorcised through ancestor worship and prayer, repentance, etc. Illness within the body was understood early on as consequences of the patient whose actions were out of sink with the movements of nature and reflected in the body through various patterns of the 8 principles: hot, cold, damp, dry,internal, external, yin & yang. What about mental/brain disorders and emotional disturbances? Particularly mania and epilepsy was thought to be the work of ghosts. Ah... But these ghosts or devils could be tamed and led outside and away from the body by a physician utilizing, through acupressure or acupuncture, a prescribed pattern from the thirteen ghost points developed over 2000 years ago.

See below:
13 Ghost Points *

GV26 --Gui Gong--Ghost Palace LU 11

LU 11--Gui Xin--Ghost Convincing SP 1

SP1--Gui Lei--Ghost Fortress PC 7

PC7--Gui Xin--Ghost Heart BL 62

BL62--Gui Lu--Ghost Road (Fire needle 3-7 times)

GV16--Gui Zhen--Ghost Pillow

ST6--Gui Chuang--Ghost Bed (Fire needle)

CV24--Gui Shi--Ghost Market

PC8--Gui Ku--Ghost Cave

GV23--Gui Tang--Ghost Hall CV 1

CV1--Gui Cang--Ghost Hidden (Moxa only)

LI11--Gui Chen--Ghost Official (Fire needle 3-7 times)

Hai Cuan--Gui Feng--Ghost Seal (Needle or Prick)

*Source: www.tcmstudent.com/study_tools/Ghost Points.html which sourced the information from "Sun Si-Miao's Ode to 13 Ghost Acupoints for the Treatment of Mental Disorders". American Journal of Acupuncture. Vol 20, No 3, 1992, p267-268.


No longer are these points used to exorcise a patient of their demon but, interestingly, to help treat various onsets of psychological illness such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, mania, epilepsy, etc. But how often do Western practitioners of Chinese Medicine use these points to treat a patient's mental illness? Would they even describe these points as "ghost points" to their Western patients? Are these practices still used in the People's Republic of China? In his March 1979 article Mental Illness in China: A 'Contradiction among the People', Joel Greenberg reports about two groups of American psychiatrists who visited the People's Republic of China to study the treatment practices of Chinese psychiatric doctors on a growing patient population of mentally ill. Oddly enough, the subject of ghost points was never addressed in the article. Of course the common practices of herbal prescriptions, acupressure, acupuncture and moxabustion were used in conjunction with Western pharmaceuticals ("antischizophrenic drugs") and a dose of communist idealism: "'The doctors believe that patients have arrived at wrong conclusions because they have not made thorough investigations' into their illness. In-hospital classes are held, where the patients study Chairman Mao's philosophical works and articles on how to handle 'the contradictions among the people,' or interpersonal difficulties."

The points that were needled--"in front of each ear canal for phobias; at the temples for ruminative states and at the mandibular joints and vortex for schizophrenia"--do not appear to match any of the 13 points listed above. But this is Chairman Mao's China. Traditional Chinese Medicine has publicly replaced Classical Chinese Medicine practices. "Superstition" in Chinese medicine has all but been completely rid of and the integration of Western science and biomedical theories and practices is the mainstream in Chinese hospitals and with the government trained "barefoot doctors" administering aide and health education to rural China.

The literal ghosts of illness and disease were replaced by figurative ones which still let us consider the mind-body disturbance that elicited the imbalance that fostered the pernicious influence to ravage the body and the mind. Then those figurative ghosts were busted and now remains the symptoms of disease to be managed. More and more, though, through the integration of Western and Eastern medical practices into mainstream medicine and the health care reform's focus on wellness and prevention, we're learning that managed disease care doesn't have to be the singular work of modern medicine. Health care professionals can actually promote health and wellness in the communities by educating the public of the curative magical practices of our bodies. The act of someone fostering wellness in another may be without its magical paradigms, but there is something sacred to the act, the ritual of giving of oneself to help heal a stranger in need. Modern healers may no longer be our village shamans or country priests but they can be guides to help us see the invisible that afflicts us, to understand the intentions of that heated influence and to educate us to know our bodies, our lifestyle (without judgment) and our environment so that we may avoid future altercations with the Devil pathogen that's keeping us from enjoying the full life we all deserve.