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Tito Vignoli – On Dreams, Illusions, Hallucinations, Delirium and Madness [from Myth and Matter]

Theophrastus tells us that blowing a flute over the affected limb was supposed to cure gout; the Romans recited carmina to drive away disease and demons; the old Slav word for physician, vraci, comes from a root which means to murmur; in Serbian, vrac is a physician, and balii, an enchanter or physician.

The use of incantations as a remedy prevailed among the Greek's in Homer's time. The Atarva-Veda retains the old formula of imprecation against disease, and the Zend-avesta divides physicians into three classes, those which cure with the knife, with herbs, and with magic formulas.

Kuhn believes that the Latin word nederi refers to these procedures, comparing with it the Sanscrit meth, medh, to oppose or curse. Pictet traces the meaning of exorciser in another Sanscrit word for a physician; Bhisag from sag, sang to objurate.