An int.resting account of Magic and Medicine-in Early England was given ab a meeting of the British Academy in the rooms of the Royal Society, Burlington House, by Dr. Charles Singer, who is now engaged in cataloguing the ancient medical manuscripts belonging to the University of (ord. Having alluded to the Dark Ages, when the supposed possession by persons of magical powers had the greatest possible influence over those of lower culture, the lecturer referred to charms and. amulets, the use of some of which still survived in certain districts, where they were worn for the cure of dropsy, ague, and other com plaints, some of which were attributed to the worm or serpent.
Rules of health were quoted from old missals,. psalters. and liturgical books, and in the course of his address Dr. Singer narrated how in later times, when Lord Chief Justice Tolt was an undergraduate, finding himself without money, he obtained a week's lodging free by giving his landlady a magical prescription, consisting of a few Greek words scribbled on a piece of paper, to be placed under the pillow as a cure for ague. Some years afterwards, when presiding at the assizes, a woman was brought before the Chief Justice on a charge of pretending to cure disease by means of a magical parchment. When the paper which formed the basis of the indictment was handed to the Bench it was found to contain the Greek words written by the judge in his college days. The woman was acquitted. and she was the last person to D> roseratet for witchcraft in Eng-jand.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.