Magnetismus Medicinalium

it follows first that natural things do not contain their own peculiar properties, and consequently there is no science [philosophia], since, given any remarkable effect, its cause is instantly to hand without further investigation: God of course wills it thus, the Spirit blows where it wills, that is how the eternal Word of God has wisely ordained it. Which, apart from being absurd, also goes against the common opinion of all Philosophers and Theologians, since God's eternal Wisdom imbued individual created things with their own particular powers, or gifts, both so that each should operate to its own ends, and also lest nature should seem an idle and fruitless institution. It would follow secondly that God is the cause of all ills, since my will and un-will would not be mine, but the willingness and unwillingness of God acting in me, with the powers of the organs instead only assisting, which it would be impious and blasphemous to assert. Thirdly it would follow that the capacities of natural things are not things co-created with their subjects, but the very Spirit of God animating them, and inciting them to hatred and emnity. So when Lodestone draws iron, that would not be the action of Lodestone, but the pull of God's Spirit centrally enclosed in the Lodestone, and, to return to our topic, thus God's Spirit in the northern mummy (for that is how the Author puts it), that is, included in the magnetised part of a strangled man, carries down the force of the ointment into the southern mummy, that is, into the flesh of the wounded man. That is inept, foolishly false, and irrational, as I show now, for whether that transporting Spirit shall be a soul - an Angel, or God (not Soul, since outside the body it can produce no material effect), be it Angel or God, surely that cure can by no means be called natural, but miraculous and supernatural. Indeed if he concede, as concede he should, that this is a natural action, I ask of him again, Whether there is any distance from the patient at which this ointment loses its effect: according to them it works at any interval, to which I conclude: The active force of all created agents is circumscribed by certain limits and bounds, to which their force and power of action is confined, in such a way that beyond them it cannot naturally by any means extend its strength: necessarily therefore the object acted on should be set up within the sphere of the agent so that its effect can ensue; which is so certain, and in accord with natural principles, that anyone who denies it should be accounted rash, not to say insane, since

given a sphere of unbounded action, and further that the spheres of all natural things are equal in activity, we are compelled to assert a continuation to infinity, than which nothing is more in conflict with philosophy. It would also follow from this infinite activity of spheres that the world will be destroyed, since not one of our people here in Rome could be safe, given the principles of this monstrous philosophy, from the basilisks of Libya, the vipers of Egypt, the dragons of Africa with their virulent breath or unbounded venemous power, nor anyone from the contagious quality of the pestilences rife anywhere in Germany, France or England, as the sphere of this toxic emanation would be unbounded. We will be burned here by the fires of Etna, suffer dizziness from the effluvium of Alpine aconite, and be in danger from the lethal emanations of the Lethean cave, all of which is laughable, unworthy, heterodox and contrary to divine and human philosophy; so unless perhaps we say, in grace and favour to the practitioners of this sort of Telungy, that we have received from nature in this Magnetic ointment a unique privilege over all natural things, namely that it acts at a distance with no limit, exempt from the common pattern of action usual in natural things, I appear to have hit the spot. For this is their verdict and their belief, for which they congratulate themselves. But away with these frivolities.

Again, they say furthermore that this force devolves first from the divine Spirit, the heavens and the stars, and thence to the terrestrial stars. Not so, for either this healing force from the stars is produced in the ointment, or outside it: If the first, I now ask again, what determines this force to act in the weapon rather than the patient? For what affinity there can be of this Spirit, or healing South, toward the wood, the iron, the sword, to which it bears no relation or necessary dependence, I fail to see. So it is not into the ointment, which is incapable of healing, but appropriately into the flesh that the heavenly healing force deserves to be transported. Also, this Spirit, which provides the carrier of the quality, is either substance or a contingent property. Not contingent, given that the Mosaic Philosopher denies the properties of natural things and asserts that all effects are unmediated works of God: the force is therefore, necessarily, substance, namely that divine Spirit located in at the centre of individual things, causing everything by its will alone: and if so, either its action will be natural, or not: not the first, since every healing effect caused immediately and directly by God, or by an Angel, should rather be called miraculous

than physical: so he is forced to assert that the ointment acts on the distant object not physically but miraculously, and consequently that all natures workings are miraculous; but if he thinks this opinion too tough and absurd, let him say then that the action is natural. If so: then it will now operate not directly from God, but mediated by the force built in to individual things by the Author of nature, acting inconsistently within its definite and consistently defined sphere. Observe therefore how such an opinion everywhere contradicts itself. But he will come back saying that this sphere of activity is to us insensible. But who has revealed this thing to the Mosaic Philosopher? If insensible, where will this force act, what will it do, on what will it act in its insensible sphere? Or how will it be able palpably to alter something else, since the effect of all natural things is only sensible to the extent that it is perceptible by the senses: nor, according to the Philosopher, is there anything in intellect which was not first in sense: so how can it be insensible if it is sensible, i.e. provides a sensible effect; or how sensible if insensible, i.e. produces the same thing insensibly: for that is what this implies. In vain then he makes up these things which can in no way be consistent with nature. My third question is whether the weapon is the efficient cause of the healing, or a necessary condition [sine qua non]. Not the first; for then the wound would be cured not by the ointment but by the weapon, on account of some likeness and affinity. But whether you consider the wound or the iron, I do not see what sympathy or affinity can mediate between them. For that would arise either from the substance itself, or the nature of the thing: but a weapon, by which one can be wounded, is not always of the same substance or nature, for it is likely to be sometimes made of iron, sometimes bronze, occasionally wood, or even stone. To attribute to these an affinity with flesh is laughable, not to say stupid. Nor is it a necessary condition, for, whether merely disposingly, or also actively, it contributes to exciting the virtue of the ointment so that it can be carried across by the transporting Spirit: but none of this can be conceived in the weapon, nor can it be a virtue belonging to the weapon, for whatever material such a weapon may be made of, nonetheless the virtue will produce its effect in conjunction with it: nor can it be a property of iron, since iron does nothing beyond one thing, which is to make a wound. We conclude therefore that this false, suspect and quite unnatural cure proceeds from that dark transporting spirit, the father of all lies. This is clearer than light, since the ingredients, things like the skull of a man violently killed, and human blood, or something similar from a human body,

the sort of thing better known than I need say for its customary use in conjuring a demon for cursing covens of witches and owls; and then, the superstitious rites with which they apply the ointment to the spike are evidence enough. For what is the use of smearing the ointment from the tip towards the hilt of the dagger, and not from hilt to tip, since accidental properties do not change the essence of the thing, and a natural cause always acts uniformly; for fire still burns whether it is applied behind or above, or to the right or to the left. So Lodestone, whether applied by day or by night to iron, be it cold or warm, above or below, attracts it all the same, and nothing can prevent it. But he will say: the bloodlike spirit is communicated to the iron through the stimulation of the ointment, and the spirit in the southern mummy, or the wounded man, attracts it magnetically. What then? If it attracts magnetically, does it then pull towards it through the intervening space blood similar to itself, or something other from the wound? or, what is hitherto unheard of, by binding the skin with its healing force, will it glue together the disrupted continuum, but then the action will not be magnetic. In vain then does he engage himself idly and uselessly in attributing the virtues of Lodestone to his ointment. But he will come back saying that experience shows that when this ointment has been used the said healing effect usually follows. So be it; but it by no means follows from this that the healing effect results from the ointment acting on the patient however far away he may be. To put it clearly, I say that this effect may be produced by deception, or by entering into a pact with the Devil, as is often the case with this sort of thing. For even if many protest that they do not have an explicit pact with the Devil, if they use that ointment they may still have an implicit one. Theologians say that it certainly happens, when someone knowing, or avoidably ignorant, uses those things of whose use an evil spirit has been informed in a pact with others of his workplace, that it produces a surprising effect of this kind: they say that the ignorant person is implicated in that pact. Or yet one may be healed naturally without any application of Armamental ointment, by cleansing alone, or by the urine of the patient, with which they command that the patient's wound be washed every day, or by powdered comfrey, which they sprinkle on it. I don't know what cleansing has that is so surprising for comforting wounds. We see that dogs and bears heal serious blows and wounds of their own body with no ointment or plaster, but only by licking, which we think is attributable not so much to the licking as to the cleansing achieved by frequent licking, in accordance with the saying of Hippocrates, that nature is the healer of diseases. Thus plasters and ointments are not healing in themselves, but coincidentally, as

breaking down the barriers to comfort and healing; thus many have been healed by cleaning away pus, which had attempted to generate for itself abcesses and spots; cleanse the wound every day, and once dry protect it, as prescribed by the magnetic healers, from external injuries, and you will be healed, without a plaster and quite comfortably. At least, if they claim to apply none of these things themselves, I should consider them attributable to nobody else, except that hellish physician from whom the Passau practitioners of this sort of thing, and the Rosicrucian Brethren, daily extort similar, deadly, and satanic medicines by their grave-robbing art, with which they expect to heal their bodies while losing their souls. In this category are those pseudomagnetic medicines drawn more truly from the Devil's school than from the university of nature. So to treat gout they cut off the hair and nails from the sufferer's feet and shins, and put them into a hole cut right to the middle of an oak, and closing the hole they smear it all over with cow dung; and if the gout does not return in the space of three months, they think that the oak tree is sufficient to attract the disease to itself in a magnetic manner; but if it does come back, it is a sign that the oak does not have sufficient magnetic power, so they turn to other stupid cures, unworthy of a rational man; in the same way, they believe that they can cure Jaundice; from the patient's urine subdued with the ash from ash trees, they form little cakes, in each of which they make a hole, into which they pour urine with a little crocus, and so they put it away in a safe place till it is consumed, or even expose it to fire to evaporate it, and with it they want the jaundice too to be consumed. They convince themselves that with a knife from a butcher's abbatoir immersed in a drink prescribed to the sick man they can heal sufferers from pleurisy. They think iron rings, or the chains of hanged men will inhibit spasm; that profuse bleeding is stemmed by vainly holding in the hand the staff used by a judge in passing the death sentence; and innumerable other unworthy things, which they publish every day cloaked under the beautiful name of magnetic cures, in grave-robbing books, from the reading of which I would like to warn everyone. Anyway, whoever desires more on this ointment, let him consult Johannes Roberti, Laurentius Forerus, and the learned Syntagma of military studies by Gabriel Naudaeus, who have very learnedly refuted the aforesaid nonsense in their books.

QUESTION

Whether a plaster prepared with a magnetic dust can extract iron from the human body.

In former years there were some in Belgium who used to treat ruptures and hernias with the aid of lodestone by the method which follows.