On Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery

Biblioteca Obscura No. 19

By Thomas Joseph Pettigrew

For much of human history, the practice of medicine existed at the crossroads of science, religion, folklore, and magic. Physicians prescribed charms alongside remedies, surgeons employed rituals inherited from antiquity, and countless diseases were attributed to invisible forces, curses, planetary influences, or supernatural intervention. In On Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, Thomas Joseph Pettigrew traces this fascinating relationship between healing and belief, revealing how superstition shaped medical practice across the centuries.

Drawing upon ancient authorities, medieval traditions, Renaissance medicine, and historical anecdotes, Pettigrew examines a remarkable variety of medical superstitions involving amulets, talismans, charms, relics, sympathetic cures, royal healing, astrology, magical remedies, and popular folk practices. His work offers an illuminating survey of the beliefs that once guided both physicians and patients, demonstrating how deeply the occult and the medical sciences remained intertwined long before the rise of modern scientific medicine.

Far more than a catalogue of curious customs, this volume explores one of the most enduring questions in the history of healing: Why do belief, expectation, and faith possess such extraordinary influence over the human body?

Professionally restored from the original edition, this volume preserves one of the nineteenth century's most comprehensive historical studies of medical superstition and the evolution of healing practices.

Bonus Historical Treatises Included

To complement Pettigrew's classic work, this edition also includes two rare and influential texts examining one of medicine's greatest mysteries—the remarkable power of the human mind to influence health and disease.

Of the Imagination, As a Cause and As a Cure of Disorders of the Body

John Haygarth, M.D. (1800)

Decades before the word placebo entered medical vocabulary, physician John Haygarth demonstrated that expectation alone could relieve pain and restore function. His famous experiments with imitation "Perkins Tractors" stand among the earliest controlled clinical investigations in medical history, revealing the profound influence of belief upon disease. Haygarth explores how hope, fear, confidence, and imagination may both produce illness and promote recovery—ideas that continue to shape modern medicine today.

The Miraculous Conformist

Henry Stubbe (1666)

One of the rarest contemporary accounts of the celebrated Irish healer Valentine Greatrakes, whose reputed cures astonished seventeenth-century Europe. Stubbe records numerous eyewitness testimonies describing recoveries from epilepsy, paralysis, deafness, chronic pain, skin diseases, cancers, and other seemingly incurable conditions through Greatrakes' celebrated laying on of hands. Whether interpreted as divine intervention, psychological influence, or unexplained natural phenomenon, these reports remain among the most remarkable documents in the history of healing.

Why This Volume Matters

The history of medicine cannot be fully understood without understanding the beliefs that accompanied it. Pettigrew's work demonstrates how superstition, religion, folklore, psychology, and early scientific inquiry coexisted for centuries, shaping both medical theory and patient experience. The two accompanying treatises extend this exploration by documenting some of the earliest investigations into what we now recognize as the placebo effect and the extraordinary influence of expectation upon the body.

For historians of medicine, students of folklore, psychology, religious healing, and the history of the occult sciences, this volume offers a unique collection of primary sources documenting the complex relationship between belief and healing.

About Biblioteca Obscura

Biblioteca Obscura is a collectible series from Shadowborn Press devoted to forgotten historical works that have shaped humanity's understanding of the occult, folklore, witchcraft, demonology, religion, alchemy, spiritualism, and the supernatural.

Each volume is carefully restored from original editions, professionally typeset, and designed to create a uniform collector's library preserving rare texts that have long remained inaccessible to modern readers.

Book Details

• Series: Biblioteca Obscura
• Volume: No. 19
• Author: Thomas Joseph Pettigrew
• Additional Works: John Haygarth & Henry Stubbe
• Format: Premium collectible paperback
• Trim Size: 4 × 6 inches
• Publisher: Shadowborn Press
• Carefully restored from the original historical editions