The Druids and Their Healing Art
We might expect to find, from the universality of their application, remedies for
the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to
preserved in perpetuo. In ancient Britain, the Druids were the depositaries of these secrets.
Amongst the early Britons, the ranks of the priests were recruited from the noblest families: their education, which often extended over a period of twenty years, comprehended the whole of the sciences of the age; and besides their sacred calling, they were invested with power to decide their civil disputes. Their dwellings and temples were situated in the thickest oak-groves, which were sacred to the Supreme Deity. The acorn, and above all, the parasitical mistleto, were held in high veneration: the latter was sought on the sixth day of the moon, and when found was only cut by a priest of the highest rank, for it was accounted a sovereign remedy for all diseases. The practice of the healing art has ever commanded the esteem of the rudest nations: hence it was the obvious policy of the priests, or Druids, to study the properties of plants. Of their progress we have no record; but who knows from what a far antiquity come the traditionary virtues of many of our native plants?
Their famous Mistleto, or all-heal, was considered a certain cure in many diseases, an antidote to poison, and a preventive of infection. And, we have, in the present day, a very old nostrum, named Heal-all, the universal virtues of which are described as equalling the mistleto of our ancestors.