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in a poultice or by fumigation, and others that counteract the poison of

creeping animals or deadly poison of beverages.^51 He wrote that, when drugs

are acting through their whole essence, it is impossible to define their action

by logical judgement, but when people examine them by testing the truth of

their efficacy will come to light.^52

Among the hundreds of Ibn Ezra’s treatments are extract of absinth

together with ashes, commonly used in his time in place of soap. The patient

wraps it tightly round the head in a bandage, then rinses the ashes from the

head. This is done two or three times a week to cure headaches of every

kind.^53 The juice of a sempervivum plant that has been buried for a year

underground, if instilled into the ear, is said to cure any deafness even if it

is from childhood.^54 A further treatment for a headache involves taking the

peganum herb with marjoram and pennyroyal and putting them in a bag on

the sufferer’s head. The pain, throbbing and swelling of haemorrhoids will

be relieved by finely ground leek, cooked with butter.^55 However, he also

recorded that excrement of a bear when hung on the thigh of one who has

colic pain makes him healthy and soothes his pain. Among his recordings of

spells and incantations is that if you write the following three names on the

patient’s forehead – kita,zviand lekh– while blood comes out of his nostrils

it will stop immediately.^56

Alternative therapies

Some traditional remedies did not require ingestion of medication but rather

relied on segulot, which originally referred to charms but came to be

304 | Traditional medicine

Figure 11.5 Oxtongue (Picris echioides): plant with psychoactive properties.