[Chastity and healing power]

The idea of a connection between chastity and healing power is to be found as well in primitive cultures as in ethnomedicine and in the medicine of Antiquity. What is meant in the Hippocratic Oath, though, is not the sexual restraint of the physician himself, but moreover in the attitude towards his patient and all the people living in the same house with the patient. This is different, though, in ethnomedicine, where the healer is demanded to live sexually abstinent for a certain time and the persons assisting him are often expected to stay untouched, i.e. chaste. "Chastity", however, as conceived by the Ancient Greek and Roman meant the integrity of marital faith. The urine of women who were chaste in this sense was believed to have healing powers. Furthermore mention is made of an African tribe, of which it was said that its members originating definitely from this tribe only, were immune against the bite of snakes and therefore had a special capacity of healing bitten persons. Ethnomedicine, on the other side, attributes great power to those who lead an unchaste life as well as to illegitimately born children. We are here confronted with an ambiguity inherent in popular imagination of disease and healing. A figure of German poetry of the Middle Ages "Der Arme Heinrich" by Hartmann von Aue, f.i., is in search of the heartblood from a young, freeborn maiden which is to cure him from leprosy. In many cases objects used by virgins or unmarried men were believed to have healing powers. Especially the imagination of epilepsy and orgasm being related to each other, lead to the claim for sexual abstinence of the patient, yes, even for his castration. On the other hand, however, epileptics were recommended to have sexual intercourse. Fasting, sometimes together with sexual abstinence, was considered to be important for the healer and as well for the patient to be cured. Plants were given in order to lead to sexual abstinence. In primitive cultures the imagination of sexual activity leading to a loss of the powers that are needed for healing, is to be found very often.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)