From the Library: ‘The Mistletoe’ by John Knott
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| Misteltoe |
A suitable selection for the festive time
of year, Dr John Knott’s 1908 pamphlet explores the history and mythology
surrounding mistletoe. This detailed and well researched account draws on a
variety of sources to demonstrate the many and varied beliefs in the powers of
mistletoe over the centuries.
Galen (130-200AD), the leading physician of
his day, believed the outward application of mistletoe ‘draweth humours from the deepest or most secret parts of the body,
spreading and dispersing them abroad, and digesting them. It ripeneth swellings
in the groine, hard swellings behind the eares, and other impostumes’.1
Galen’s views on the medicinal power of mistletoe
continued into the 17th century, when William Salmon in his New London Dispensatory (1676) credited
the plant with much the same properties, but also stated that it ‘helps palsies and convulsions, is hydrotick
(causes a discharge of water or phlegm) and antepileptic (good against
epilepsy)’.2 Other writers credited mistletoe as an effective
treatment for convulsions, palsy, vertigo and cardiac disease.
However, Knott himself is rather scathing regarding
the long lasting beliefs in the medicinal power of mistletoe, stating it ‘offers a remarkable, and I hope, fairly
interesting example of the persistence, down through tens of centuries, of
medical faith in the efficacy of a therapeutic agent of which the claims have
been utterly discounted in the light of modern science’.3
What would Dr Knott make of the beliefs
held by some, over a century after he wrote his pamphlet, that mistletoe is an
effective anti-cancer treatment without scientific or clinical trials to
support the claim?
Knott does allow himself a moment of levity
at the end of his work when he reflects of mistletoe’s place in Christmas
celebrations;
‘The
great majority of our adolescents at present date will, nevertheless, I venture
to think, agree with the sentiments expressed in the quaint old doggerel
stanza;
Of all the games, both rich and
rare,
There is a game none can
compare;
And that sweet game, as all you
know,
Is kissing ‘neath the Mistletoe.4
John Freeman Knott was born in 1854; he
studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin and worked as anatomist to the Royal
College of Surgeons in Ireland. A scholar and bibliophile, he published
extensively on a range of medical subjects, from mistletoe to spontaneous
combustion; many of his works can be found in Dun’s
Library.
One of the most surprising events in
Knott’s life was in 1916, when he became involved in the Easter Rising. On
Easter Monday 1916 Dr Knott, then ‘an
elderly, erudite, and eccentric Fellow’5 of the Royal College of
Surgeons left his house on York Street to take his daily walk to the College of
Surgeons where he was in the habit of using the library. Ignoring the fighting
taking place around him Knott proceeded to the front door of the College and
knocked for admittance, the Bedel opened the door slightly to tell Dr Knott
that the College was closed that day, but Countess Markievicz and ‘two other rebels presented themselves at the
Hall door, one of the rebels firing at close range a rifle’ and forced
their way into the building.6 Knott survived his brush with the
rebel forces, and died in 1921.
1. Knott, John, ‘The Mistletoe’, reprinted
from the New York Medical Journal,
December 19, 1908, pp.18-19
2. Knott, ‘The Mistletoe’, p.22
3. Knott, ‘The Mistletoe’, p.26
4. Knott, ‘The Mistletoe’, p.27
5. Widdess, J D H, The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and its Medical School,
1784-1966, p.113
6. Widdess, The Royal College of Surgeons, p.113
The Heritage Centre is closed for the Christmas holidays from Wednesday, 18th December and will re-open on Monday, January 6th, 2014. We wish all our readers the very best over the festive period.