Afraid of Witches?—Wear Garlic Charm.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18644, 22 December 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

Afraid of Witches? —Wear Garlic Charm .

For Ague Get Three Rag Dolls and Plant One at Cross-Roads at Midnight.

HUNGARY EXPOSES QUACKS.

By a

Special Correspondent of the “ Star."

BUDAPEST, October 30. OUACKS have flourished the world over since the beginning of time, and will continue to flourish so long as human credulity exists. An exhibition in progress here shows in a remarkable way the lengths to which quackery has gone. It is an old experience that after all world-shaking events man is especially prone to mysticism and more easily falls victim to superstition and quackery. This has been manifest since the war. The present, therefore, was considered propitious for a technical exhibition to expose quackery, so the exhibition was arranged to coincide with the annual Congress of the National Medical Alliance at Budapest. The specific object is to present Hungary’s medico-ethnoerraphical records of quack instruments and crude curative methods employed by rustics, to compare quackery with scientific healing, and to expose propaganda and advertising activities of quacks. The exhibition visitor is at once confronted with life-size figures of notorious quacks and popular healers. His attention is claimed by the gold saman, well known among certain Siberian tribes, related to the Hungarians and dwelling on the banks of the Amur, who believes he holds communion with spirits when he is in a trance induced by the beating of his drum, and at such times effects cures on the advice of a spirit control. The foreign visitor is not greatly surprised by the claims of the gold saman, since his counterpart appears now in many guises and as many cities. But one is amused by the figure of a man suffering from choleraphobia, made from a seventeenth century English caricature. He carries, both attached to his clothes and piled on a -hand cart he pushes before him, a mass of advertising matter relating to remedies for cholera and to various kinds of fumigators. There is an excellent model of a Chinese doctor’s dispensary with the servant playing the mandolin, while in front of the house stand figures familiar in Chinese towns; the blind masseur playing the flute and the street-doctor. Another well known character, faithfully represented, is the woman quack of Hungarian villages, holding the satchel containing her instruments and secret curative treasures. There is

also a group of the animals invested by Hungarians with occult powc’S, the owl, bat, raven and luminous-eyed cat. Among exhibits representing curative methods of primitive peoples are Chinese, Negro, Paraguay, Ostyak and Indian pipes which, besides b-'ng used for pleasure, are held to be ~f value in treating the sick. With the pipes are displayed cigars wrapped in bamboo and palm leaves, bunches of tobacco, opium balls and a lamp for lighting opium; also the areka leaf, scissors for cutting the nut, basins used for making betel, and betel glasses. An apple a day is acknowledged to keep the doctor away, but with nails stuck in it it would appear to be a panacea for anaemia. All manner of fetishes, idols and amulets of professed curative and prophylactic value are on view. An interesting piece from south-west Africa is a statue covered with human skin. Special credit is due to the organiser of the exhibition for having obtained a beautiful triptych in apotheosis of Semmelweis, “ Saviour of Mothers.” Of the amulets and talismans of Dr Geza Faludi’s collection, the greater part serve as antidotes to the evil eye and enchantment, a cause of terror amo:-g primitive people from the earliest times. There is the bronze phallus, an amulet favoured by the ancient Romans, the Italian manifica (hand with thumb between first and second fingers), and corno (little horn) as well as three Byzantine amulets of glass plate. There are many kinds of coins, worn round the neck as talismans against jaundice and plague. There are thalers dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century, also a rich collection of the tables of numbers (often in the Hebrew language) of the various planets used by the Cabalists. One previous gold amulet protects against poison and stabbing, and a small English silver coin was used as a “ touch piece ” lor the King’s Evil. During the terrible epidemics rife in the disease-ridden Middle Ages, the protection of the saints was constantly invoked, and so it came about that nearly every complaint or disease was the care of some patron saint to whom the affected person prayed, wearing the patron’s portrait about his neck on a medal. Medals of this character comprise those of Saint Benedict, Saint Sebastian, St Anastasius and St George. There are also the medallions of nature healers and magnetisers.

Many quaint things are to be found among the paraphernalia of protective superstition, of which the following are typical: a coffin nail, efficacious against car-ache; a wax goblet for persons with jaundice; a collar of buttons on tape, warranted to cure an abscess; bonepowder pounded from a child's skull for dipsomania, three rag-dolls—one of these to be placed by a person withf ague at the junction of cross-roads at midnight, his indisposition transferred to the unluckv finder of the doll. There is an ointment compounded of bullock’s hair and cream, good for sores on the leg; a necklace of garlic to ward off witchcraft, the bone of an unchristened child, to cause barrenness; an egg-shell containing horsehair to be thrown away after touching the sore part of the body, the finder being affected with the disease and the former sufferer thereby relieved; a bundle comprising a goose’s head, bones roots and wool, to be placed on the threshold of one’s enemy, who passing over it will contract any disease one mav wish! Objects and instruments of quackerv seized by the police and those belonging to the Criminological Museum of the State Police at Budapest are also on view, including cuppers, blisterers and tooth-breakers. There is also a representation of a tooth-draw-ing ceremony enacted by the village barber—and his victim. The real value of the exhibition is its exposure of harmful, popular customs and superstitions still prevailing among the lower classes. There is great need to enlighten and instruct the masses in this respect.

(Copyrigrht by the “Star” and the N.A.N.A. All rights reserved.)