(Who else but Mencken could refer to the work of funeral parlors as "human taxidermy," to drinkers as the "bibuli," to cussing as "sulphurous language," to the practice of medicine as "
leechcraft.") He describes himself at one point as a "purist," but he was a purist who appreciated inventive language, useful neologisms, tangy slang, new words required for medical and scientific discoveries.
Alas, the leechcraft of the doctors is unable to lessen the pain of his wound, which is described again and again in terms of fire.
Faramir is taken to the Houses of Healing, but as with Paris in Troy, whose "help no leech availed" (10.280), "Faramir burned with a fever that would not abate," despite the fact that "the leechcraft of Gondor was still wise" (V.8.860).
Leechcraft, a showman scientist' who electrifies boys in publicly performed spectacles; and Mr.
The poet discovers this old son of toil to be a leech-gatherer who supplied medics of the time with the creatures essential to their
leechcraft. (11) The old man details and explains his declining calling (once plentiful, leeches are disappearing with the draining of the wetlands).
Or they may repose in the tomb of history, as
leechcraft, the Anglo-Saxon word for the practice of medicine, and murfles, a long defunct word for freckles or pimples.
`Tudor and Stuart
Leechcraft' on the 10th is followed by `Army Medicine in WW1' (17th) and `Army Medicine in the Dhofar War'.
Indeed, the term "leech" derives from the Anglo-Saxon loece, a term that means both "to heal" and "physician." In the Middle Ages, medicine and "
leechcraft" were synonymous.
In this tale, entitled "The Faithful Stone," one of the Druedain gifted in
leechcraft who protects a family must leave them briefly.
Theoden eventually recognizes the insidious nature of Wormtongue's influence on his court, saying to him, "your
leechcraft ere long would have had me walking on all fours like a beast" (152).