Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A Dissertation upon the Employment of Excrementitious Remedial Agents in Religion, Therapeutics, Divination, Witchcraft, Love-Philters in all Parts of the Globe

The subject of Scatalogic or Stercoraceous Rites and Practices, however repellent it may be under some of its aspects, is none the less deserving of the profoundest consideration,—if for no other reason than that from the former universal dissemination of such aberrations of the intellect, as well as of the religious impulses of the human race, and their present curtailment or restriction, the progress of humanity upward and onward may best be measured.

Philosophical and erudite thinkers of past ages have published tomes of greater or less magnitude upon this subject; among these authors, it may be sufficient, at this moment, to mention Schurig, Etmuller, Flemming, Paullini, Beckherius, Rosinus Lentilius, and Levinus Lemnius. The historian Buckle regarded the subject as one well worthy of examination and study, as will appear in the text from the memoranda found in his scrap-books after his death.

The philosopher Boyle is credited with the paternity of a work which appeared over the signature “B,” bearing upon the same topic.

The anonymous author or authors of the very learned pamphlet “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” for the perusal of which I am indebted to the courtesy of Surgeon John S. Billings, collected a mass of most valuable bibliographical references.

Quite recently there have appeared in the “Mitterlungen Gesselsch.,” Wien, 1888, two pages of the work of Dr. M. Hofler, “Volksmedicin und Aberglaube in Oberbayern Gegenwart und Vergangenheit,” describing some of the excrementitious remedies still existing in the folk-medicine of Bavaria.

But while treatises upon this subject are by no means rare, they are not accessible, except to those scholars who are within reach of the largest libraries; and while all, or nearly all, indicate the association of these practices with sorcery and witchcraft, as well as with folk-medicine, no writer has hitherto ventured to suggest the distinctively religious derivation to be ascribed to them.

From the moment when the disgusting “Urine Dance of the Zuñis” was performed in the author’s presence down to the hour of concluding this work, a careful examination has been made of more than one thousand treatises of various kinds and all sizes, from the musty pig-skin covered black letter of the fifteenth century to the more modest but not less valuable pamphlet of later years. These treatises have covered the field of primitive religion, medicine, and magic, and have likewise included a most liberal portion of the best books of travel and observation among primitive peoples in every part of the world; not only English authorities, but also the writings of the best French, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Celtic authors are here presented, together with an examination of what has come down to us from leaders of Eastern religious thought and from the monastic “leeches” of the Anglo-Saxons.