Note 154.3 — Chapter X · WITCHCRAFT: PHILTRES—PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL LEECHCRAFT.

Marcellus mentions a number of prescriptions which cannot be cases of transplantation, but rather intended to unite a diseased body with a sound one for the benefit of the former. Take his remedy for a gathering in the ear by injecting the warm urine of a boy under the age of puberty. Or where incontinence of urine is to be cured by making water in a dog’s sleeping-place, saying the while: “Let me not make water in my own bed, like a dog.” Or the recommendation to apply the cut hairs of a boy under puberty to the suffering foot of a gouty patient. A prescription extolled as et praesens et maximum for consumptives, even when apparently beyond hope, consists in administering the saliva or foam of a horse in warm water for three days: the horse will die, and the sick man recover.154.3 Even here, in spite of the horse’s death, we have no warrant for supposing that the disease is transferred to him. The operation upon him is clearly to be attributed to the magical principle so fully discussed in this and the previous chapter. The process is the converse of transplantation. Nothing that has touched the patient is brought back to the unfortunate horse. His death is caused by union through his own saliva with a sick body which absorbs his qualities of health and strength.