Note 4 — Chapter III · POPULAR ERRORS.
Reading edition
Many varieties of weapon-ointment were used. Some of the articles in them which were considered most essential were powder of mummy, human blood, and moss from the skull of a thief hung in chains.
It is a humiliating fact in the history of human wisdom, that Lord Bacon, the wisest man of his time, could only say of the pretended efficacy of this ointment, that he, himself, “as yet, is not fully inclined to believe it.”