a charm, or preservative against mischief, witchcraft, or diseases.

Amulets were made of stone, metal, simples, animals, and in a word of every thing that imagination suggested.

Sometimes they consisted of words, characters, and sentences, ranged in a particular order, and engraved upon wood, &c., and worn about the neck, or some other part of the body. See **ABRACADABRA**.

At other times they were neither written nor engraved; but prepared with many superstitious ceremonies, great regard being usually paid to the influence of the stars. The Arabians have given to this species of amulet the name of **TALISMAN**.

All nations have been fond of amulets: the Jews were extremely superstitious in the use of them, to drive away diseases; and the Mithra forbids them, unless received from an approved man who had cured at least three persons before by the same means.

Among the Christians of the early times, amulets were made of the wood of the cros, or ribbands with a text of scripture written in them, as preservatives against diseases. Notwithstanding the progress of learning and refinement, there is not any country in Europe, even at this day, who do not believe in some charm or other. The pope is supposed to have the virtue of making amulets, which he exercises in the consecrating of **Agnes Dei**, &c. The sponge which has wiped his table, was formerly in great veneration as a preservative from wounds, and from death itself; on this account it was sent with great solemnity by Gregory II. to the duke of Aquitain.

Amulets are now much fallen from the repute they were anciently in; yet the great Mr Boyle alleges them as an instance of the increase of external effluvia into the habit, in order to show the great porosity of the human body. He adds, that he is persuaded some of these external medicines do answer; for that he himself, having once been subject to bleed at the nose, and reduced to use several remedies to check it, found the moss of a dead man's skull, though only applied so as to touch the skin till the moss was warm thereby, the most effectual of any. The same Mr Boyle shows how the effluvia, even of cold amulets, may, in tract of time, pervade the pores of a living animal; by supposing an agreement between the pores of the skin and the figure of the corpúcles. Bellini has demonstrated the possibility of the thing in his last propositions **De Fabulis**; and the like is done by Dr Wainwright, Dr Keill, &c.