Volume 57 May 1964

Section of the Historyof MedicinePresidentWH McMenemey MD

Meeting March 41964

Paper

Historical Aspects ofCeltic Medicineby Martin M Whittet FRCPEd DPM(Craig Dunain Hospital, Inverness)

The ink of Celtic Medicine may not have forgot-ten but it has faded and fragmented. Yet thepalest ink, says the Chinese proverb, is better thanthe best memory. Now it may be less than possibleto evaluate with discrimination the Celtic medicallore. Some may be but the dim cobwebs of super-stition and empiricism, and when the searchlightofmodern science is played upon them their dustyfrailty illuminates but for the moment the beamsofthought and lofty rafters of bygone generations.

The first legendary Highland physician wasFarquhar Leech - the healer. He acquired hisknowledge in a curious way. A doctor from thesouth country, seeing the lad Farquhar with astaff of hazel in his hand, bade him go back to thetree from which he cut it and get another one. Hepromised the lad gold and told him to watch thefoot of the tree. Farquhar, drover that he was,returned to the tree in the Reay Country inSutherland. He cut another hazel staff and thenout of the foot of the tree emerged six brownserpents. The seventh was a white one. He putthis one in a bottle and was rewarded with gold.He was then asked to watch over the whiteserpent brewing in the pot. His finger touchedthe brew and he licked it. Lo, he knew everythingand became all wise. Thus Farquhar the droverbecame Farquhar the doctor (Campbell 1860).

The early beliefs were shown in more tangibleform by the fact that it was customary in ancientHighland times to place a wax candle, a gold coin,a hammer, and a pair of scales with a body in thegrave. The candle was to light the pilgrim acrossthe black river of death, the coin to pay the ferry-man, the hammer to knock at the door of heaven,and the scales to weigh the soul (Carmichael1928).

The DruidsEarly medical knowledge was in the hands of theDruids - very wise and very knowing. They had along novitiate which lasted some twenty yearsbefore they became consultants. They committedlittle to writing - a virtue which, alas, is no longerwith us. They used the rowan rather than the oakfor their wands amidst the Highland hills. Loversof brevity, the Druids delivered their maxim forhealth in three words, 'cheerfulness, temperanceand exercise'. Their legacy to us includes thehoroscope, the mistletoe, and certain festivals -

now holidays (McWilliam 1931).

St ColumbaThe same Highland hills were to look down onthe Druids disappearing like snow in summerwhen St Columba brought Christianity to KingBrude in Inverness in AD 565. Columba hadarrived in Iona in 563. Like his Master, Columbawasa physician. Hewasaman ofsplendid presence,magnificent voice and wonderful fascination overthe minds of men. He is virtually the Patron Saintof the Scottish Highlands. His monastery in Ionaincluded a hospital built of wood and wattle forthe reception of the sick, and there was also a herbgarden.

In 565 Columba came upon the burial of a manwho had been partly devoured by a monster in theRiver Ness. He directed one of his companions toswim across the river to fetch a coble from theother side. The monster darted after the man witha roar, but at the command of the Saint, whomade the sign of the cross in the empty air, themonster retreated to the depths wherein it dwelt.The heathens there present, says his faithfulchronicler, St Adamnan, were greatly astonishedand magnified the God of the Christians (Barron1951). St Columba cured Broichan the Druid, bypicking a white pebble from the bed of the RiverNess. The pebble floated on water which thenacquired curative properties not only forBroichan but for others. This cure symbolized

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the victory of the Saints over the Druids. Thereliquary of St Columba, called in Gaelic theBracbennach, a variegated peaked decorative boxdoubtless containing in its time healing oils, waslater said to have been carried by the Scots at thebattle of Bannockburn in 1314. From StColumba's time healing wells blessed by andnamed after the Saints were common, as werecharm stones and amulets. Many rhymes, ritualsand incantations of medical content wereChristianized by adding a reference to the HolyTrinity.

MacBeaths and MSS'The clouds of pride and madness and mysterioussorrow' wroteG K Chesterton, 'hang more heavilyon the noble houses of Scotland than on anyother of the children of men' yet the Lords of theIsles and associated nobles could well have beenproud of the fact that they furthered not only thearts, but medicine. For some 400 years from thebeginning of the fourteenth century they sub-sidized what was, in effect, a Highland and Islandmedical service. Charters still extant indicate thegrant of lands to physicians of the name ofMacBeath or Beaton. In return, attention was tobe given to the health of the lieges and at least oneson was to be trained to continue the practice.Aptly the Gaelic meaning of the name MacBeathor Beaton is 'Son of life' (Gillies 1911).

The MacBeaths practised mainly in theHebridean Islands of Islay, Mull, Skye and Uist.Their nominal ubiquity and pre-eminence wereremarkable. If medical history is on occasion dull,they at least observed Lewis Carroll's precept-'You've no idea what a difference it makes mixingit with other things, such as gunpowder and seal-ing wax'. They did both and more. For they werein attendance when the Kings of Scotland were ill,from the days of King Robert the Bruce untilJames VI went to the English throne in 1603. Eventhen he took to London one James Beaton for 'hewas a skilled empiricist'. Not only did they wit-ness and sign important charters, but one DrBeaton the famous physician of Mull was sittingon the upper deck of the Florida, one of thevessels of the Spanish Armada, when she blew upand sank with gold bullion aboard in TobermoryBay in 1588. Although hurled into the water heescaped without ill.

The Royal favour shown to the MacBeathsaroused jealousy and on one occasion otherdoctors taking umbrage substituted bovine forthe Royal urine when a Beaton was examining theKing. He discovered the fraud and addressingthem said, 'If you gentlemen open up His Majesty

you will find him in calf'. The incident is com-memorated in a Gaelic ode (Nicolson 1958). One,Neil Beaton, had the temerity to cut a piece out ofa woman's skull broader than half a crown, and bythis restored her to perfect health. He also ex-tracted the juice of plants and roots after achemical way peculiar to himself, and in generalhis success was so extraordinary that people inSkye thought it due to a compact with the Devilrather than the virtue of simples (Martin 1703).The MacBeaths were not just quacks or incanta-tionists, but men abreast of the science of theirday. Some were on the Roll of the University ofGlasgow from 1512. They have left a legacy ofGaelic manuscripts dating from at least as earlyas 1403. Some were translations from Greece,Rome and Araby and included the Aphorisms ofHippocrates. Others were from the great medi-x,val medical schools of Salerno and Montpellier.DrFarquharBeatonof Skyevalued his translationof Gordon's 'Lilium Medicinw' so much that if hehad to cross an arm of the sea by boat he waswont to send the book round by road for safety.The MacBeaths kept a family 'medical bible'which included the essence of their translationsand the added savour of pertinent comments andobservations of their own. In the year 1563 it wasin the possession of one John MacBeath. DrCameron Gillies' work called 'Regimen Sanitatis'(1911) is in fact the medical vade-mecum of theMacBeaths. Prevention of illness is stressed, as isthe constitutionand temperament ofthe individualpatient: 'If you would be healthy cast fromyou heavy sorrow and be convinced it will notprofit you to be angry'; 'The moderate abstinenceis very high healing'; 'Good cooking is really halfthe digestion'; and one familiar from Druid days,'Have a cheerful mind and moderate diet and takeexercise'. There is reference to herbs and blood-letting. Indeed the surgical skill of the MacBeathsbecame enshrined in a proverb, 'The MacBeathsof the polished ways, slitters of bones and veins'.Gillies makes the interesting point that the word'sanis' was then used as pertaining to the healthy.Our in-sane people today are now out of theirminds. In the olden time they were out of theirhealth or wholeness.

Martin MartinBut what was the real explanation of the pre-eminence of these Hebridean medical families?Must it not lie in their background and outlook?The answer perhaps comes from one who himselfwrote, c. 1695, a quaint and curiously uniquedescription of these Western Isles. It is in itselfnoteworthy that Martin Martin, a native of Skyein the remote Hebrides, was in a position in theseventeenth century to give informative addresses

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to the Royal Society and to produce and publishworks of importance. He had the advantage forhis subject of being a native with intimate know-ledge of land and language. He wrote:

'The inhabitants of these Islands seem to be betterversed in the book of nature than many who havegreater opportunities of improvement. . . Thehusbandman and fisher could expect but little successwithout observation in their several employments,and it is by observation that the physician commonlyjudges the condition of his patient.... Every plant ofthe field, and the least particle of the smallest insectcarries with it the impress of its maker and if rightlyconsidered may read us lectures of divinity andmorals. . . . The wise Solomon did not think itbeneath him to write of the meanest plant as well asthe tallest cedar.'

The Celts shared strongly in the belief, held bymankind from the dawn of thought until now,that in plants there is somewhere and somehow asovereign remedy for disease. It is this book whichreveals the background and characteristics of thevery regions where generations of MacBeathswere reared and nurtured. It draws peculiar atten-tion in ordinary but fascinatingly quaint languageto the powers of observation and the gifts ofunderstanding of the native Celtic people. TheMacBeaths or Beatons were native Celtic peopleand Dr David Livingstone, the medical mission-ary,was descended from them. Moreover, Martin'sbook induced-Dr Samuel Johnson and Boswell toembark on their famous tour of the Hebrides in1783.

Martin dealt largely with the domestic medicineof the times and some of the medicine of his timehas become the folk medicine of today. Of theearly hospitals there is little record, but as early as1457 the Chancellor of Ross was appointed byKing James II to visit and improve them (Comrie1932). Spittal near Westerdale in Caithness wasone of them, but not all places of that name werehospitals as we know them. Thus Dalnaspidal inthe Pass ofDrumochter, well known to this day toall who traverse the Grampians, was more aplace of refuge for travellers where in the six-teenth century they were safe from the wolveswhich still prowled for a century after that. Somewere spitals for leprosy, a disease which hadafflicted King Robert the Bruce himself (Pennie1958).

Martin's book is in English but contains afew Gaelic words. It was Edward Lluyd (1660-1709), the second keeper of the AshmoleanMuseum at Oxford and founder of ComparativeCeltic Philology, who, the scattered references inthe Gaelic manuscripts apart, made the first

systematic record of the names of diseases,medical terms, and herbs in the old Gaelic tongueduring his tour of the Scottish Highlands 1699-1700 (Campbell & Thomson 1963).

HighlandersIn translating into the English, an exceptional andperipatetic Highlander, Sir Thomas Urquhart ofCromarty (1611-60), made an unusual contribu-tion to the literature. A man of manic drive andinvention, he translated the first three books ofRabelais. Although he was not a medical man hefound Rabelais congenial, with the result that inthe words of Carter (1955) 'the extraordinaryfecundity of Rabelais which nevertheless ex-pressed itself with at least some restraint and con-cision, blooms in English with a magnificentefflorescence due more to Urquhart than toRabelais'. Sir Thomas, it is recorded, died of animmoderate fit of laughing on hearing thatCharles II had been restored to the throne.

For the ordinary settled Highlander of thetimes there had been no essential change incharacter of the Highlands since the last effec-tive invasion of the Norsemen in the eighth andninth centuries. He was not necessarily an aggres-sive man but rather a man at home within him-self. Although he had his faults the word cowardwas not in his language or his history. His attitudeto health and heredity is shown in the old proverbsdating back over the centuries, i.e. 'Is righ gachslin' (Every healthy man is a king). Indeed howtrue, for is not every diseased person in somemeasure a slave? Or again in the fervid saying,'May we be preserved from lawyers and doctors'.Health, the proverb said, was the estate to handon. Of heredity the saying was that 'It will splita rock, i.e. nature is strong, nurture is strong, butnature is the stronger. Certainly the Highlanderbelieved in choosing his parents well. He was aperson of lively imagination. He filled his hillswith fairies and his rivers and lochs with monsters,but one can be certain he did not overlook thefact that salmon were also there and trout, andabove them on the slopes, the deer. Perhaps hehas not really changed very much. Continuitydoes not make for history as much as change, buthistory was to come to the Highlands fromanother quarter.

CullodenIn the northern skies the Aurora Borealis, orNorthern Lights, it is said, always presage storm.It would be strange if these phenomena wereabsent in the early months of 1746, for Culloden,the last battle of destiny on British soil, was

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Fig 1 Sir Stuart Threipland (1716-1805), from the commemorative painting of his presentiment after Culloden.Original by Delacour in possession ofMr Mark Murray Threipland

fought in April of that year in the environs ofInverness, which in that year was afflicted withmeasles, smallpox and dysentery. A hat whichcost 14s in London went by the name of a guineahat, yet mutton and beef were a penny a pound,and salmon, despite protest, had been raised to2d a lb (Lees 1897). London in 1746 had endemicmalaria and a typhus epidemic (Gordon-Taylor1945). In 1746 Prince Charles Edward Stuart was25. His chiefmedical adviser Sir Stuart Threiplandwas 30. William Duke of Cumberland was also 25and his chief medical adviser Sir John Pringle was39. The military events and wounds of war atCulloden have been described by many - themedical personalities by few.

Medical PersonalitiesSir John Pringle Bt MD lived from 1707 to 1782.He was educated at St Andrews and EdinburghUniversities, and the fame of Boerhaave tookhim to Leiden. He survived Culloden to becomePresident of the Royal Society, 1772-8, duringwhich time he presented the Copley medal toCaptain Cook for preserving the health of hiscrew, and to Professor Maskelyne for his observ-ations on the attraction of mountains carried out

on Schiehallion. Virtually founder of Armymedicine, he advocated that hospitals in warshould be immune from gunfire and really set thebasis for the Geneva Convention of 1864 (Comrie1932). The third of Samuel Johnson's three petaversions - 'Whiggism, Presbyterianism and SirJohn Pringle', he nevertheless appears as very fairminded. 'I know', he said, 'that our people wereat great pains to decry the Prince's courage afterthe battle of Culloden; but that I considered asdone upon a political, rather than an historicalprinciple' (MacNaughton 1897).

Sir Stuart Threipland MD FRCPEd lived from1716 to 1805. His Christian name betokened thefamily loyalty. After Culloden a presentiment un-accountably arose in his mind and he changeddirection and escaped pursuit from theHanoverians. Finally in the garb of a Presby-terian minister he reached safety. This presenti-ment he attributed to the Supreme Disposer ofEvents and the scene is commemorated in apainting by the French artist, Delacour (Fig 1)(Chambers 1880). Threipland's possessions aretreasured. His medicine chest is in the RoyalCollege of Physicians in Edinburgh. Anothertravelling chest (Fig 2) and his mortar and pestle

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are preserved by his descendant, Mr MarkMurray Threipland, in Caithness. He lived tobecome President of his College in Edinburghfrom 1766 to 1770 and to get back his forfeitedestates.George Lauder, surgeon, was PRCsEd at the

time of Culloden. A Jacobite, he was takenprisoner along with his friend John RattrayFRcsEd. Rattray, one of the original Members ofthe Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers,had two years before won the Silver Club on theLeith links, and the club poet had written,'Rattray for skill and Corse for strength re-nowned, Stewart and Leslie beat the Sandyground'.

Alexander Munro miD Primus (1697-1767)4was Professor of Anatomy at Edinburghi. Not-withstanding the fact that, like the rest of his clan,he was a Hanoverian he interceded impartiallyfor his colleagues and former students on bothsides of the campaign. Among them was DrArchibald Cameron (1707-53), Locheil's brother(Fig 3). He was the Jacobite who promised thePrince that if he joined the Standard he would bethe last to quit. Cultured Highlland physician andgentleman, after Culloden a fugitive, he furtheredthe cause until his life ended publicly on the,scaffold at Tybum in 1753. His last act in life wasto give a pair of steel buckles to his wife for their Fig 3 Dr Archibald Cameron (1707-53) - 'The last toson with the message, quit'. From the portrait in the Scottish National

Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. (Artist unknown)'Tell him from me that I send him these and not my

silver ones, and that if I had gold ones I would not interestedness. So I would have him constant and dis-send him the gold, but these steel ones which I wore interested in the service and defence of his king,when sculking. For steel is hard and of small value, prince and country, and neither be bribed norit is therefore an emblem of constancy and dis- frightened from his duty' (Forbes 1896).

With these words it was for Dr Cameron'Lochaber no more' and for the Stuarts the end ofa destiny. A promise was kept. He was the last toquit.

Prevalent DiseasesAfter Culloden typhus broke out. Diarrhoea wasalso frequent but for this Pringle blamed the Nesswater. Before Culloden Prince Charles hadpneumonia and afterwards when he was a fugi-tive he had dysentery. This he blamed on milkand, unusual perhaps for the Hebrides, a shortageof alcohol. He was cured by his favourite remedy,treacle. His famous saying, 'I only need the Itch tobe a compleat Highlander' is taken to mean thathe escaped the endemic scabies. But accounts

______ _ handed down by word of mouth to this day saythat when he was in Skye 'he was scratching him-self like a dog' (Macintosh 1961, personal com-Fig 2 Threlpland's polished metal travelling chest (size s l a

15 x 12 x 10 inches). In the possession ofMr Mark munication). It would certainly seem that theMurray Threipland Prince suffered more anxiety and discomfort from

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dysentery, if not from the Acarus scabiei, than hedid from any fear of being betrayed by the High-landers for the then princely sum of £30,000.Prince Charles' experience with dysentery was farfrom unique, as dysentery and epidemic dia-rrhcea were prevalent in the Highlands and Islandsthroughout the ages, and are referred to almost tothis day as 'rud a' dol' the 'thing that's going'.Pennie (1958) has pointed out that the prevalenceof dysentery may be judged by the multiplicity oftreatments quoted by Martin from various partsof the Islands, i.e. brandy, powdered cuttle-fishbone, powdered coral limestone heated in the fireand quenched in milk - all astringents. Mentionis also made of molluca beans; these were pul-verized and drunk in milk or brandy.

In general, however, disease, famine andpoverty were no more rife in the Highlands thanelsewhere in Europe. There was little plague. Thebrown rat did not reach the Highlands until 1770.And the black rat was not widespread. In 1630Sir Robert Gordon wrote, 'There is not a ratt inSutherland; and if they doe come thither in shipsfrom other pairts (which often happeneth) theydie presently how soon they doe smell the aire ofthat Cuntrey' (Gordon 1812). Measures againstinfection seem to have been sensible. In the lateseventeenth and eighteenth centuries the dangeraround Inverness was from foreign ships. Ifsuspected of infection they were put in quarantinein the Moray Firth, but smugglers went out forcontraband. If they were caught the magistratesburnt the rowing boat and the goods in it. Theculprit was stripped, dressed in sackcloth and withthe hangman's noose round his neck, was escortedto his home. There with his family, servants, anddogs if any, he was locked in for fourteen daysbefore being allowed out to face trial for en-dangering the community (MacDougall 1956,personal communication). Smallpox was thegreatest scourge of the eighteenth century. Thenessentially a disease of childhood and inevitable,like measles and chickenpox, it was consideredunlucky to mention the name in front of thepatient and it was called 'A'bhean mhath' (thegood woman). Malaria existed in Sutherland,Argyll, Skye and Tiree until the end of theeighteenth century. Sibbens, a kind of yawsbrought by foreign soldiers and treated bymercury, was also fairly common then. St Kildain its lonely isolation presented an unusuallyvulnerable community for not only smallpox, buteven the 'boat cold', i.e. common cold brought byan incoming ship, could be fatal. Tetanus neo-natorum was so rife from mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries that mothers delayed pre-paring clothes for eight days after the birth of achild. The detention of the psychopathic Lady

Grange, wife of one of the Scottish Law Lords,on the Island from 1734 to 1741 led Dr Johnsonto say 'If MacLeod let it be known he had such aplace for naughty ladies he might make it a veryprofitable island' (Boswell 1785). The laterscourge of tuberculosis came to the Highlands inmid-nineteenth century and those of Celtic stockwere reckoned to be particularly susceptible tothe acute fulminating type.

Mental IllnessThe archetypal fear and stigma of mental illnesshas in itself ensured that it leaves an indeliblestamp on the medical history of any country. TheHighlands are no exception nor the Highlandmoon. The old Gaelic sayings were 'Saturday'sautumn moon will take frenzy seven days', and'New moon of Saturday will take madness threedays'. Rough precursors of shock treatment werepractised for centuries, i.e. on Thursday the dayof St Columba the patient was taken on the backof a grey horse at terrific speed and sudden circle,or dragged at speed behind a ten-oared boat(Cannichael 1928). In the case of Isle Maree thepatient was dragged three times sunwise roundthe Island before drinking the waters of the well.Martin mentions a blacksmith in Skye, theseventh generation so gifted, who had the art ofshocking a nervous patient into cure by swinginghis hammer at him but ending in a feint 'else hewould be sure to cure the patient of all diseases'.Notorious indeed was a certain examiner of sus-pected witches around Inverness in 1662. Heturned out, however, to be a woman disguised inman's clothing (MacKay 1880). By 1809 a DrKennedy was using a form of electricity for de-pression in Inverness. In 1832 MacAlpine, per-haps not without some bias, was writing, 'Thesublime science of phrenology has been in use inthe Highlands from time immemorial though theinhabitants of Edinburgh pique themselves on itsdiscovery'. In 1867 Dr Aitken in Inverness des-cribed the state of one female patient who wasbehaving altogether like a cat thus: 'Although itmay seem trivial it is a condition associated withlycanthropia or wolf madness of the middle ageswhich caused so much terror in countries in whichit became epidemic.' Tradition therefore lingered,for Bayfield had noted the decline of this concep-tion of lycanthropy in the early seventeenthcentury (Hunter & Macalpine 1963).

AlcoholAlcohol has long been recognized in the puritan-ical Highlands for its therapeutic, tranquillizingand invigorating propensities. The Hebrideanswere forbidden by the Statute of Iona 1609 to

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import it but were allowed to distil it (Gregory1836). The position, of course, has long since beenofficially reversed. The MacBeaths mentioned itsuses, and Martin (1703) said that strangers andnatives alike in the Islands consumed, as a correc-tive for the climate, treble the quantity of theirsouthern neighbours. Perhaps the brew of oldentimes was stronger than modern Scotch whiskywhich our Celtic neighbours, the Irish, haverecently described as the best of all the softdrinks. Exaggeration spills over also into theremark that the Highland pharmacopoeia had buttwo remedies, sheep-dip for external ailments andwhisky for internal ones. Traditionally Highlandhospitality is all but synonymous with 'uisge-beatha' - the water of life. The historical view-point was exemplified with balance, dignity andsympathy when Captain Para Handy of the pufferVital Spark spoke of his mate thus: 'Dougie's nooa staunch teetotaller except about the time of theOld New Year, or when he'll maybe be taking adram for medicine. It iss a good thing for hiswife; but it leaves an awful want in Barra, andthem other places where they kent him in his besttrum' (Munro 1931).

Folk-loreThe great Osler remarked to this Section on acommendable absence of folk-lore or gossip(McMenemey 1963). Yet, perhaps Osler wasseeing folk medicine at close range as across thenarrows of a deep loch on a clear day before rain.Now folk medicine by its very survival has becomea scientific curiosity. The colours - black, whiteand grey - the evil, the good and the mystery; thered of the sacred rowan; the healing numbers 3and 7, the cleansing rituals of wells and runningwater, and of silver in the old Highland cures havemore and not less significance since Frazer's'Golden Bough' (1922) and the advent of modernpsychopathology. It was the seventh serpent, awhite one, that turned Farquhar the drover into adoctor, and the seventh son was accredited withspecial healing powers as was the Trinity. Sym-bolism of almost a universal nature is seen in thecure of epilepsy by burying a black cock without awhite feather on the spot of the last fit, or bydrinking water from the skull ofa suicide (Mitchell1862), in the assorted amulets as used againstwitchcraft and the evil eye, and cattle murrain;and in the 'corp creadha', the clay image made ofone's enemy and left to disintegrate in runningwater (McNeill 1957). In Highland folk-lore someof the oyster's wounds have become pearls:fungi for festering wounds; brisgein the thyroidgland of sheep for dwarfed children; for leumdroma (the sore back), hyperextension by theseventh son, or one born feet first, walking up and

down the prone patient's spine. Inflammation wasattributed to a ghrid or microbe, in anticipation ofmodern science (Galbraith 1944). Chest massagefor the ailing adolescent, colourfully described as'taking the creel stones off the lad', was used in aninvigorating way in an effort to prevent tubercu-losis in the mid-nineteenth century (Masson1880).

How much is known about these old curestoday? At Christmas 1963, when 500 question-naires regarding them were issued to senior schoolchildren in the Highlands and Islands to takehome and complete with the help of parents andgrandparents, 270 were completed. Among thedifferent ailments treated by the cures, wartsfigure 191 times, rheumatism 158, toothache 151,styes 130, sprains 88, chest diseases 83, stomachdisorders 72, septic conditions 69, skin diseases52, shingles 51, epilepsy 43, sore back 26, kidneytrouble 9 and heart disease 6. The cures involvesymbolism, the conception of similarity and con-tact as described by Frazer in the 'GoldenBough', and the use of herbs, fungi and the bles-sing of the Trinity, &c.; 60% of the cures hadbeen seen used, 50% were said to be in occasionaluse, and about 70% said to have had some effect.

Unsubtle and fallacious as this approach maybe, yet it shows these cures linger in the memory.Why? Haggard's dictum (1929) '80-90% of allailments get well of themselves under fair con-ditions but most people imagine that such recov-eries are positive cures' may go some way towardsan answer. And has not the term psychosomaticbrought a new scientific respectability to many anold concept? Hippocrates said 'He doth the bestcures in whom most trust'. The practice of medi-cine of yesterday may be the folk medicine oftoday, but on occasion the folk medicine of todayhas become the scientific medicine of tomorrow.Some may have been inspired guesses, withoutwhich, Newton said, no great discovery is reallyever made. Many, admittedly, were less inspiredand more fanciful. Yet almost all involved faithand reassuring suggestion, allies which the mostmodern of medicine cannot do without. It iswrong historically to imagine that it is only in thedark and remote Hebridean Islands that the oldlamps flicker beside the flames of the new. 'Never,never will I wear a copper bracelet to keep awayrheumatism no matterwhat the Marquess of Bath,the Duchess of Norfolk or anyone else in Debrettmay say', wrote 'Atticus' in the Sunday Times inthe year of grace 1962. Followed closely, how-ever, by the Marquess's own words 'I don't carewhat the doctors say, it works'. Faith then issurely older and younger than the centuries them-selves, and is surely part ofthe history ofmedicine.

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ConclusionThese glimpses of Scottish Celtic medicine areworth while only if we are in heartfelt accord withDr Samuel Johnson: 'To judge rightly on thepresent one must oppose it to the past for alljudgement is comparative.... If we act for our-selves to neglect the study of history is notprudent, if we are entrusted with the care ofothers it is not just.'

Acknowledgments: I am very grateful to friendsand colleagues particularly in the teaching andmedical professions. I would like to thankespecially, Mr Mark Murray Threipland, MrJames MacGeoch, the late Alex N Nicolson,MBE, the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum,and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

REFERENCESAitken T (1867) Third Annual Report of the Inverness DistrictAsylum. InvernessBarron R (1951) Trans. Gaelic Soc., Inverness 41, 26BoeUl J (1785) Journal ofa Tour to the Hebrides 1773. LondonCampbell J F (1860) Popular Tales ofthe West Highlands.EdinburghCampbell J L & Thomson D S(1963) Edward Lluyd inthe Scottish Highlands, 1699-1700. London

Carmichael A (1928) Carmina Gadelica. 2nd ed.London & EdinburghCarterH S (1955) Glasg. med. J. 36,267Chambers R (1880) The Threiplands ofFingask, 1853.London & EdinburghComrie J D (1932) History of Scottish Medicine. LondonForbes R (1896) The Lyon in Mourning 1746-75. EdinburghFrazer J G (1922) The Golden Bough. LondonGalbraith J J (1944) Trans. Gaelic Soc., Inverness 39/40, 63Gillies H C (1911) Regimen Sanitatis. GlasgowGordon R (1812) A Genealogical History oftheEarldom ofSutherland. EdinburghGordon-Taylor G (1945) Brit. J. Surg. 33, 129GregoryD (1836) History ofthe Western Highlands andIsles of Scotland. EdinburghHaggardHW (1929) Devils, Drugs and Doctors. LondonHunter R A & Macalpine I(1963) Three Hundred Years ofPsychiatry (1535-1860). LondonLees J C (1897) A History of the County ofInverness. Edinburgh& LondonMacAlpineN (1832) MacAlpine's Gaelic Dictionary. GlasgowMacKayW (1880) Trans. Gaelic Soc., Inverness 9, 113McMenemeyWH (1963) Proc. R. Soc. Med. 56, 839MacNaughtonWA (1897) Caledon. med. J. 15 59McNeil FM (1957) The Silver Bough. GlasgowMcWilliamW (1931) Caledon. med. J. 14, 366MartinM (1703) A Description ofthe Western IslesofScotland c. 1695. LondonMasson D (1880) Trans. Gaelic Soc., Inverness 14,297Mitchell A (1862) Various Superstitions in the North WestHighlands and Islands of Scotland. EdinburghMunro N (1931) Para Handy and Other Stories.Edinburgh & LondoaNicolson A (1958) Trans. Gaelic Soc., Glasgow 5, 94Pennie I D (1958) Scot. med. J. 3, 398