Virtual Mentor. October 1999, Volume 1, Number 2.

Did You Know?

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Witchcraft, Folkloric Remedies and the Paranormal

Medical trivia of the supernatural, paranormal and otherwise ghoulish.

• Searching MEDLINE using "supernatural" terms and keywords yields the following:
  Werewolf — 20 citations
  X files — 260 citations
  Trick or Treat — 74 citations
  Ghost — 1634 citations
• The Transylvania Journal of Medicine (1828-1839) was published by the Medical Department of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. The university still exists, but the medical school closed in 1860.
• Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center investigates apparent paranormal phenomena.
• Human sacrifice was widespread as a gift to the gods among the Aztecs in the mid-15th century. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people were sacrificed each year.
• Witchcraft medicine uses a variety of plants to treat various afflictions. For example: Leaves from Thuja occidentalis are burned on coals to purify patients and exorcise evil spirits; Phytolacca americana is used by the Iroquois as an expectorant, emetic, cathartic, and for bewitchment; Smashed Linaria vulgaris plants when taken induces vomiting that can remove bewitching; and Sarracenia purpurea is used by sorcerers—exact use is unspecified.
• October 31 is the birthday of:
  John Keats, British lyric poet and physician, who died of tuberculosis at age 25; and
  Marian Chace who founded and championed dance/movement therapy as a profession based on body-mind relationships.