Note 62 — Chapter X
Reading edition
"The ointment that witches use is reported to be made of the fat of children digged out of their graves; of the juices of smallage, wolf-bane, and cinque-foil, mingled with the meal of fine wheat; but I suppose that the soporiferous medicines are likest to do it." See Sylva Sylvarum, cent. X, 975, in Works, ed. Spedding, II, 664. But even this passage shows Bacon a skeptic. His suggestion that the soporiferous medicines are likest to do it means that he thinks the delusions of witches subjective and produced by drugs. For other references to the subject see Works, II, 658, 660; VII, 738.