The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Healing power of the Bible
L aurencekirk reader, Walter Blakeman, stopped me to say he had a Bible he thought I’d be interested to see. Knowing from this column that the former Church of Scotland manse at Logie Pert – renamed the Kirklands by my mother – had been my home for 36 years, it was a Bible with a Logie Pert connection. He had inherited it from his father who had been chauffeur to several of the local big houses.
In the elaborate language of the day, the inscription in Walter’s Bible reads: Presented to Mr and Mrs Scott of Brotherton in token of the respect entertained for them by all classes of the parishioners of Logie Pert, during their residence of four years at Craigo House, Logie Pert, May, 1868.
The estate and castle of Brotherton, near Johnshaven, was owned by the Scotts of Brotherton for some 375 years ending in 1949. Hercules, the Scott of Brotherton of Walter’s Bible, demolished the old castle at Brotherton and built the present Victorian Scottish Baronial mansion (now the home of Lathallan School) necessitating the move to Craigo House until his new home was completed in 1868.
The picture, right, shows Walter with the Bible which, despite its age, is in excellent condition. Colourful red, blue and gold marbled endsheets, such favourites of Victorian bookbinders, catch the eye as soon as you open the cover. But it has to be the heaviest Bible I’ve ever held.
Biblical intervention
It brought to mind the old Scottish medical remedy that was popular in the Middle Ages to get rid of a ganglion, an uncomfortable fibrous growth which appears on the top of your wrist and which is best got rid of.
I developed one when I was a student at Edinburgh University. The doctor’s surgery was a room in his house, and when he had examined me he galloped out of the room for a moment. He returned with a heavy, old leather-bound family Bible. Placing my wrist flat on his desk, palm down, he struck the ganglion a savage blow with the Bible. “I’ve waited a long time to do that,” he said with undisguised satisfaction.
In rural Scotland in the Middle Ages this was the accepted way of dealing with ganglions. If the ganglion broke up and dispersed it was due to the intervention of the Good Book. If, however, it persisted you were beyond medical and spiritual deliverance and so vile a sinner that not even the Bible could save your loathsome soul.
I was a child of the sparkly new NHS created in 1948. My mother had not prepared me for such perverse brutality from a man whose profession I had been brought up to admire. But looking back I was probably lucky – a whack from Walter’s Bible would have likely broken my wrist.
I remember thinking at the time that the doctor had been waiting for someone like me, a student, to try out his arcane experiments on. He recommended I return in a week
“
I’ve waited a long time to do that, he said with undisguised satisfaction
if the ganglion persisted, but I’d had enough of being a guinea pig. Anyway, his treatment actually worked. And doctors have told me the Good Book treatment is still an accepted way to get rid of the problem.
Heartfelt remedies
You needed a pretty robust constitution for some of the other treatments on offer.
A reader recalled her grandmother’s remedy for ailing children who were slow to get better, giving them a spoonful of the clear serum found on a new-laid cow pat. You’d certainly want to hold your nose as you swallowed that one.
Bear in mind that this was a remedy in use in living memory, just like the Good Book treatment for ganglions. For all I know there are grannies out there yet, running round the countryside with big spoons waiting for the next cow to... well, I’m sure you know what I mean.
Our Scottish wild pansies are known also as heartsease. A distillation of the flowers was used to treat several conditions. On one hand they were highly regarded as a love potion, and on the other they were recommended as a laxative. They sound like powerful medicine and, if they were as efficacious as they sound, small wonder our ancestors experienced an easy heart as they anticipated a welcome easing.
I grew up believing that mushrooms are edible and toadstools are poisonous. They are all fungi but I still don’t really know how to distinguish between many of them, despite reading a splendid little book called Edible Fungi by John Ramsbottom from which it seems that many toadstools are indeed edible. He mentions, in passing, that the Bible refers to “leprosy of a house” which apparently is the dry rot fungus.
Mr Ramsbottom advises against eating too large quantities of any fungi at any one time which, he cautions, may result in “wishful reflection”. His safeguard against “accidents” is a hen dung and vinegar emetic. Powerful medicine indeed.