"The liver, which the
experts say is the very tripod of their art, does not consist of pure
blood; for the heart retains all the uncontaminated blood, and irrigates
the whole body with it by the conduits of the arteries; whereas the
gall, which is situated next the liver, is stimulated by anger and
depressed by fear into the hollows of the liver."
We have seen how early and how widespread was the belief in amulets and
charms against the occult powers of darkness. One that has persisted
with extraordinary tenacity is the belief in the Evil Eye the power
of certain individuals to injure with a look. Of general belief in the
older civilizations, and referred to in several places in the Bible,
it passed to Greece and Rome, and today is still held fervently in many
parts of Europe. The sign of "le corna,"--the first and fourth fingers
extended, the others turned down and the thumb closed over them,--still
used against the Evil Eye in Italy, was a mystic sign used by the Romans
in the festival of Lemuralia. And we meet with the belief also in this
country. A child with hemiplegia, at the Infirmary for Diseases of the
Nervous System, Philadelphia, from the central part of Pennsylvania, was
believed by its parents to have had the Evil Eye cast upon it.
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