Illustrated catalogue of the original collection of instruments of torture from the Royal Castle of Nuremberg : amongst which will be found the original Iron Maiden (Eiserne Jungfrau), lent for exhibition by the Right Honourable the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot.

Date:
[between 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Illustrated catalogue of the original collection of instruments of torture from the Royal Castle of Nuremberg : amongst which will be found the original Iron Maiden (Eiserne Jungfrau), lent for exhibition by the Right Honourable the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pjs atmes ponse pjd pom pe \y}<m pjo cOdki oh p& pec. oeneoo 3er)ecrior) 5er)'cul c.\r-alon CA|ie cni]’c 0rrr) ip pon |UtT)e 0a1)C if fO]xriur)e. He5Uif <\T)rma, rr)A|x if fc<u)<v oejue c<vi)bo The oldest known corn cure of England is in reality a horse cure. This is reproduced in Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of early England. It means in Anglo-Saxonian: “This maeg horse with thon, the him bith corn on tha fet,” or English: “This may cure a horse, that has a corn on his feet.” The cure in this case is only an incantation and the incantation is not a homo¬ geneous one. It begins by referring to seven Greek words with alliteration; that is, three g’s, three c’s and one p. The words are very much mutilated and constitute merely an allusion to the birth of Christ. The second part is Anglo-Saxon: “etm is forrune, naht is forrune, ” or English: “The breath is run away and the night is run away. ” Similar sentences are very common in medi¬ cal incantations, meaning that sickness should disappear as some¬ thing that never returns, if once gone, such as the human breath or the night. The third part is in Latin and, like the Greek part, is very much mutilated. Restored, as it is known from other manuscripts, it means: “You (the corn) cannot return next year and also not later on.” This Anglo-Saxon incantation to a corn shows that medieval medicine and surgery were absolutely in¬ fluenced by the Greeks and Romans. As we have learned, they in turn acquired it from Asia Minor. Our researches show that in medieval times pamphlets of a hygienic character were prepared for travellers. The care of the feet is there emphasized. In all of these books no original mat¬ ter is found—the text is entirely made up of extracts and compi¬ lations. There was, in these times, a strong prejudice against the new, and therefore innovations were not to be expected. About 1500 A. D., Bartholomseus Maggius wrote a pamphlet on the treatment of gunshot wounds. This certainly was original matter, but the author sought to escape the charge of originality by attempting to prove that Hippocrates, who lived two thou¬ sand years before the author, would have treated these gunshot wounds in just such a manner as indicated. If such new re¬ search work was dangerous for the recognized physicians and surgeons of the time, it may readily be concluded that an innovation in the treatment of corns was even more dangerous to the then practitioners of chiropody—the barbers. The movement therefore to treat corns and kindred diseases of the feet in a scientific manner is absolutely a new departure.