Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1910 — THE LAYING ON OF LANDS [ARTICLE]

THE LAYING ON OF LANDS

A Method of Healing Whtok W M Mr . Hctwl la far CoaatleM Agree. For countless ages among barbaric,* pagan and Christian peoples the belief wo current that Individuals diseased and "curtailed of their fair preportlons" could ba healed by "tpueh," by the "breath," by words end prayer, by the wearing of aipulets and talismans, by "charms" of svery conceivable and Inconceivable kind. The licsl ng of the sick by the application iof binds la or vast antiquity. It la to be tauid In the records snd the practices of the early Egyptians snd Jews, tie Assyrians and Indians. One of tjas earliest recorded rn the <

with the supposed nesting powers og the kingly “touch.” It was believed for a long time that living together and breathing upon & sidcly person would produce salutary t as well A harmful effects. Young children and virgins were supposed to have the power to “cure” by breathing upon the patient and sprinkling him with their own blood. This method of “cure” Is mentioned by Galen,’Pliny and Virgil. - A Teutonic writer, Hufeland by name, from his vast reservoir of experience, gravely informs us that “when we consider how efficactoufc for lameness are freshly opened animals, or the laying of a living animal upon any painful affection, we must feel convinced that these methods are not to be thrown aside.” Curing by “words” was common ln the early'ages. They cast out the disease spirits by exorcism. Ulysses, mythology has It, stopped a hemorrhage by words, styptic words, evidently. Cato cured sprains by the same means. Various astrological signs Inscribed’ upon amulets and talismans—of minerals or of metals —were supposed to prevent and to cure diseases When worn on the body of the sufferer. Herbs, roots, loadstones, bloodstones, pieces of amber, images of saints, were also worn for the same reason. The Buddhists, for instance, had a sort of religious reverence for the sapphire. They called It the stone of stones