Pestilence, riots, lynchings and desecration of corpses. The sleep of reason produces monsters

Vampirism has been a component of Central European and Balkan folklore since the Middle Ages and was often believed to be responsible for the transmission of serious infectious diseases such as plague and tuberculosis/consumption. Vampirism was believed to be spread within the same family or village and if the rite of the so-called second burial after death was not performed. The practice of "second burial" entailed exhumation of the body and the removal of the shroud from the mouth of the corpse, and a search for evidence if the corpse had chewed the cloth. If the shroud was chewed, a handful of earth or a brick was put into the body's mouth so that the vampire could no longer harm others. In some cases, the corpse was decapitated and an awl, made of ash, was thrust into its chest. Furthermore, the limbs were nailed down to prevent its movements. Remarkably, these beliefs were not restricted to the popular classes, but were also debated by theologians, political scientists at the height of the eighteenth century (Enlightenment). In the Habsburg Empire, this question attained such important political, social as well as health connotations as to force the Empress Maria Theresa to entrust an ad hoc study to her personal physician Gerard van Swieten with a view to determining what was true about the apparitions of vampires that occurred throughout central Europe and in the Balkans. The result of this investigation led to a ban on the "second burial" rites. Despite this prohibition, the practice of necrophilia on the bodies of suspected people continued, and both a cultured and popular literature on vampirism continued to flourish well into the nineteenth century.

[In process]

This "article romancé" interprets the clinical section of the Assyrian text BAM I-234 in psychiatric terms, arguing that it describes a melancholic state with delusions of ruin and persecution. From this interpretation, the question arises of whether the words of the insane were regarded as omens.

The frightening borderlands of Enlightenment: the vampire problem

Between 1724 and 1760, in the frontier area of the Habsburg empire waves of a hitherto unknown epidemic disease emerged: vampirism. In remote villages of southeastern Europe, cases of unusual deaths were reported. Corpses did not decay and, according to the villagers, corporeal ghosts were haunting their relatives and depriving them of their vital force. Death occurred by no later than three to four days. The colonial administration, alarmed by the threat of an epidemic illness, dispatched military officers and physicians to examine the occurrences. Soon several reports and newspaper articles circulated and made the untimely resurrection of the dead known to the perplexed public, Europe-wide. "Vampyrus Serviensis", the Serbian vampire, became an intensively discussed phenomenon within academe, and thereby gained factual standing. My paper depicts the geopolitical context of the vampire's origin within the Habsburg states. Secondly, it outlines the epistemological difficulties faced by observing physicians in the field. Thirdly, it delineates the scholarly debate on the apparent oxymoron of the living dead in the era of enlightened reason. Fourthly, the early history of vampirism shows that ghosts and encounters with the undead are not superstitious relics of a pre-modern past, or the Enlightenment's other, but intimate companions of Western modernity.

[Criminal superstition, pregnancy and infants at the turn of the 19th century]

Around 1900, various crimes were still caused by criminal superstition. Criminologists like Hans Gross, Albert Hellwig and August Löwenstimm were engaged in the exploration of this topic aiming at the complete explanation of criminal behaviour linked to superstition. Crimes against pregnant women and infants are particularly good examples to illustrate the problems arising from crimes motivated by superstition. When assessing superstition under scientific and legal aspects, the criminologists applied different approaches, although positivistic rationalization was the most common tendency. In the forensic and legal evaluation of crimes related to superstition the problematical questions were whether the perpetrator was criminally responsible and how the offence was to be legally qualified. In many cases, criminals motivated by superstition were treated with more lenience.

[Criminology and superstition at the turn of the 19th century]

Criminology, which institutionalised at university level at the turn of the 19th century, was intensively engaged in the exploration of superstition. Criminologists investigated the various phenomena of superstition and the criminal behaviour resulting from it. They discovered bizarre (real or imagined) worlds of thought and mentalities, which they subjected to a rationalistic regime of interpretation in order to arrive at a better understanding of offences and crimes related to superstition. However, they sometimes also considered the use of occultist practices such as telepathy and clairvoyance to solve criminal cases. As a motive for committing homicide superstition gradually became less relevant in the course of the 19th century. Around 1900, superstition was accepted as a plausible explanation in this context only if a psychopathic form of superstition was involved. In the 20th century, superstition was no longer regarded as an explanans but an explanandum.

Thinking with Montaigne: evidence, scepticism and meaning in early modern demonology

In 1612 the Bordeaux witchcraft inquisitor Pierre de Lancre (1556–1631), himself linked by marriage to Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), revealed that the essayist and sceptic was related on his mother’s side to a leading authority on magic and superstition, the Flemish-Spanish Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608). De Lancre confounded historians' expectations by using the revelation to defend Montaigne against his cousin's criticism. This article re-evaluates the relationships of De Lancre, Delrio and Montaigne in the light of recent scholarship, which casts demonology as a form of "resistance to scepticism" that conceals deep anxiety about the existence of the supernatural. It explores De Lancre’s and Delrio’s very different attitudes towards Montaigne and towards evidence and scepticism. This, in turn, reveals the different underlying preoccupations of their witchcraft treatises. It hence argues that no monocausal explanation linking scepticism to witchcraft belief is plausible.

[Odón de Buen: forty-five years of commitment to the university]

The aragonese naturalist Odón de Buen y del Cos for twenty-two annual academic courses professor of natural history at the University of Barcelona and for twenty-three of the University of Madrid. Strong supporter of Darwin's evolutionary theory, experimental work in the field and laboratory, in this paper puts the value of their efforts, as an educator, to popularize the natural sciences and thus separated from the concerns, superstition and fanaticism, which they were basic reasons of the moral and material backwardness in which Spain was found.

[Vampires in the village Žrnovo on the island of Korčula: following an archival document from the 18th century]

The main interest of this essay is the analysis of the document from the State Archive in Venice (file: Capi del Consiglio de' Dieci: Lettere di Rettori e di altre cariche) which is connected with the episode from 1748 when the inhabitants of the village žrnove on the island of Korčula in Croatia opened tombs on the local cemetery in the fear of the vampires treating. This essay try to show some social circumstances connected with this event as well as a local vernacular tradition concerning superstitions.

[Traces of blood. The significance of blood in criminology at the turn of the 19th century]

In late 19th and early 20th century, criminology became institutionalized as an independent branch of science. Methodologically it focused on the 'exact' methods of the natural sciences, but also it tried to integrate the methods of the humanities. This mix of methods becomes visible in the treatment of blood, which on the one hand was an object of then brand new methods of scientific analysis (identification of human blood by the biological or precipitin method), and on the other hand was analyzed as a product of the magic and superstitious mentalities of criminals. The methodical tension resulting from this epistemological crossbreeding did not disturb the criminologists, for whom the reconciliation of opposite ways of thinking and researching seemed to be possible. In this encyclopaedic analysis of blood early criminology tried to combine the anthropological exploration of vampirism with the chemical and microscopic detection of antibodies and haemoglobin, thus mirroring the positivistic optimism that was then prevalent.

[Attitudes of medieval doctors on birth]

In the towns practitioners taught midwives whoses attendance is noticed in well-known texts. Labour rooms might have been in lazarettos from the thirteenth century. Practice of delivery by Salerne's School was uncertain and heavy with superstition as the child birth's time was considered with fear of unknown forces and Chauliac's work seemed important during this period.

[Save for eternity: principles of medical science in the age of Montaigne and Cervantes]

This article approaches the medical arts at a time in which therapies are based on empirical knowledge, dictated by the fallacy of the authority ofunshakeable traditions. "Madness" and "eccentricities" perpetuated by Old School medical craftsmen are prevalent today in the strange practices of the new charlatanism, such as trunk cell technologies.

Menstruation in Ulysses

This article investigates James Joyce's fascination with a wide variety of medical texts, sexual folklores, religious beliefs, and persistent superstitions about menstruation. That fascination finds its way into Ulysses, which draws upon a number of intertexts to inform a curiosity about the female body most strikingly articulated by Bloom, Molly, and Gerty MacDowell. These intertexts are not simply imported into the novel but are dismantled and interrogated, as Joyce exposes, rather than endorses, clichés of essential femininity.

Medical astrology in Spain during the seventeenth century

It is well known that astrological practice during the Early Modern period was closely related to medicine, and that it provided a tool for diagnosis and treatments. An interesting aspect of this relationship of medicine and astrology is the recognition of the prevailing ideas about medical astrology in the astrological works and astrological-medical treatises. This article discusses the ideas of Galenism and the astrological doctrines that established such a strong relationship between astrology and medicine. There is an overview of the Spanish authors who wrote about the subject, especially those linked with the universities. The paper then goes into detail about the examples of these ideas found in the Spanish printed texts of the seventeenth century. Finally, there is a section on some very interesting and little known treatises on medical astrology which were a reference for the practice of astrological medicine in the period.

Superstitions of George Bartisch

George Bartisch was a 16th century German ophthalmologist who published the first ophthalmology textbook in the vernacular for laymen and non-university-trained practitioners. His treatments and understanding of diseases rested firmly on Greek tradition, but he also was very involved in the superstitions of the day. This essay looks at the man and his mores. Bartisch believed that much of the suffering of patients had to do with sins they had committed, and that the devil was the active force in the world inflicting this punishment. Often, he believed, witches would carry out the devil's hexes, in the form of either hot or cold witchcraft. Bartisch also felt that astrology played a major role in the outcome of surgery. Because of that he practiced only during certain astrological signs, and in the proper waxing and waning phases of the moon. He also linked many common problems to sins. For example, presbyopia was presented as due to excessive use of alcohol. Glasses were to be avoided because he felt they destroyed vision in themselves. Despite these superstitions and misconceptions, Bartisch was an honorable professional and his books give insight into the making of a good ophthalmologist.

[On the cultural history of psychiatry]

About 1800, psychiatry was established as a medical discipline with special institutions (madhouses). Therefore, historiography of psychiatry focuses generally on the last 200 years. This contribution will also illustrate aspects of medical and cultural history, which nowadays are mostly supposed to be less important: the premodern concept of melancholy and hypochondria between humoral pathology, demonology, and psychology; the assessment of psychiatric illness as a "creative malady," even complementary to genius; the dialectics of psychiatric therapies between suppression and emancipation, which is especially prominent in the early nineteenth century in regard to "moral treatment" ( psychische Kur in German), a topic stressed vigorously by the "antipsychiatry" movement around 1970; the denunciation of patients and sections of the population by eugenics ( Rassenhygiene in German) and racism (especially toward the Jews) by psychiatrists. Finally, the miraculous mechanisms of mass hysteria of "normal" individuals are questioned.

The mummy's curse: historical cohort study

OBJECTIVE

To examine survival of individuals exposed to the "mummy's curse" reputedly associated with the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen in Luxor, Egypt, between February 1923 and November 1926.

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

PARTICIPANTS

44 Westerners identified by Howard Carter as present in Egypt at the specified dates, 25 of whom were potentially exposed to the curse.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Length of survival after date of potential exposure.

RESULTS

In the 25 people exposed to the curse the mean age at death was 70 years (SD 12) compared with 75 (13) in those not exposed (P=0.87 for difference). Survival after the date of exposure was 20.8 (15.2) v 28.9 (13.6) years respectively (P=0.95 for difference). Female sex was a predictor for survival (P=0.02).

CONCLUSIONS

There was no significant association between exposure to the mummy's curse and survival and thus no evidence to support the existence of a mummy's curse.

[On an unknown edition of the Reprobación de supersticiones by the master Pedro Ciruelo]

The aim of the article is the analysis and description of one of the editions of the well-known Reprobación de supersticiones by the master Pedro Ciruelo. To be exact, it is the first edition, as we will demonstrate through the text, which was undiscovered until now. We proceed to the description of a copy kept at the library of the Diocesan Seminary of San Miguel de Orihuela. In addition to the more formal aspects, the evolution and development of the author, printer and engraver are extremely important for dating this printed work.

[Old plants and medicines used by Anabaptists-Mennonits in the days of old]

The evangelic Christian Mennonits, issued from Helvetia, spread first in Alsace, then in the neighbouring countries, bringing so traditions in agronomy and folk medicine. As generally in rural areas, in the days of old, natural therapies were characterised by rather strange practices, sometimes imbued with superstitions and mystic ideas. Some works, books, almanacs, dweller manuscripts, allow us to reach some uses forsaken and replaced by modern and scientific medicines.

[The attitude of the New Guinea natives towards illnesses]

According to the traditional views of the New Guinea natives sudden violent illnesses, epidemics, disabilities, congenital deformities, mental handicaps, accidents, violent deaths are most of the times being ascribed to actions of the supernatural forces, usually to ghosts and magic. Only the slight wounds and insufficient functions weaknesses if their physical base was evident, suicide, senile or death at war (although not always) were considered as "natural". According to the natives, breach of common law granted by the supernatural, especially of taboo is the basic cause of sickness and death. The diagnosis and treatment of the patient is carried in accordance with this concept. Quacks start with trying to establish the "actual" cause of sickness or death; often the blame is attributed to effect of destructive magic of several kinds. Especially dangerous is the so called "death spell", particularly the one connected with "poisoning" or "destruction of interior" by a witch or wizard. On the basis of established cause the quack applies treatment consisting usually of many elements. At first the actual cause is to be removed, i.e. the sick person has to undo the damage he made or ease the wrath of the supernatural and, if need be, the soul of the patient which got lost or was abducted has to be found. Sometimes the wizard who cast the spell has to be identified and made to give an antidote to the sick person. Occasionally the quack extracted the foreign body from the body of a sick person. Customarily the sick person received also the multi-component curing specimen consisting of, among others, herbs of great curing effect. The composition of those specimens, especially of antidote for "magic poisons" is kept secret.

Geophysical variables and behavior: XC. What people consider strange: change in proportions of reports of Fortean phenomena over time

The proportions of 3,667 reports classified as unusual or odd events within eight major categories for four contiguous blocks of time between 1770 and 1970 were compared for disconcordance. The major source of the disconcordance (phi = .52) of reports between the major categories and time was due to the decrease in the numbers of reports of falls of ice, rocks, and animals but increased numbers of reports of odd luminosities, labelled as unidentified flying objects, after the mid 1930s. One hypothesis to explain this result is that cultural changes in attributions for causes of natural phenomena may affect their designation as strange rather than mundane.

[Epilepsy: an incapacitating disease? Propitiatory topic for a free program for epileptics]

The facts and causes for the margination of people that suffer epilepsy, their problems regards social adaptation and even familiar troubles, all together circumstances that they are carrying since ever in the times until nowadays, are reviewed on the basis of the social and historical aspects and the evolution of ideas regards epileptology. It is stated why such opinions should be reconsidered and instead of which, to divulge appropriate arguments to realize that those persons should enjoy general acceptance and achieve the most adequate development.

[Medicine and religion in Spanish anti-superstition discourse of the 16th to 18th centuries: a battle for hegemony]

The object of this research is the study of the different kinds of relationships between medicine and religion that appear in the Spanish anti-superstition discourse from the 16th to the 18th century. Despite the relationship of alliance and collaboration between the two professional groups proposed by the Spanish theologians in their essays, situations of conflict and mutual distrust could also arise. The professional physician could be an ally of the Christian priest but also a dangerous rival.

A chieftaincy dispute and ritual murder in Elmina, Ghana, 1945-6

Between 6.30 and 7.00 a.m. on Monday morning, 19 March 1945 the body of a young girl of ten was found on the beach a short distance from the town of Elmina at a popular bathing spot known as Akotobinsin. According to the coroner, she had been dead for between 24 and 48 hours. There was no water in her lungs or stomach which indicated that she had not died by drowning. Instead, her upper and lower lips, both cheeks, both eyes, her private parts and anus, and several elliptical pieces of skin from different parts of her body had been removed. Many of these wounds exposed large blood vessels and the coroner concluded that ‘death was due to shock and hemorrhage’. She was identified as Ama Krakraba who had been missing since the evening of Saturday, 17 March. Her frantic mother had immediately suspected foul play and had confronted Kweku Ewusie, the Regent of the Edina State, who was later accused of having ‘enticed’ the young girl to the third floor of Bridge House, where he lived, ‘by the ruse of sending her out on an errand to buy tobacco’. There she had been murdered so that her body parts could be used to make ‘medicine’ to help the Regent's faction win a court case that was critical for their political standing in Elmina. On the 24 March, after a preliminary investigation, the colony's attorney-general brought charges of murder against Kweku Ewusie and four others from Elmina: Joe Smith, Herbert Krakue, Nana Appram Esson, alias Joseph Bracton Johnson, and Akodei Mensah. They were tried at the Accra Criminal Assizes from 16 May to 2 June, found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to be hanged. The West African Court of Appeal turned down their appeal on 28 June 1945 as did the Privy Council on 14 January 1946. On 1 February 1946, Kweku Ewusie, Joe Smith and Herbert Krakue were hanged at James Fort in Accra, and on 2 February, J. B. Johnson and Akodei Mensah met the same fate.