Magnetismus Medicinalium

They prescribed the drinking of iron filings reduced to the finest powder, while externally they applied to the affected part a plaster made from crushed lodestone, made up with roots of delphinium, and with this medicine they boasted that in the space of eight days (if they are to be believed) a patient could cure himself while lying the whole time on his back. With such magnetic plasters, a bohemian peasant in Prague, named Matthew, was cured entirely of a prodigious illness, according to Oswaldus Crolius in the admonitory preface to his Basilica Chimica. This rustic, who for two years, by a wondrous and unheard-of dexterity of the throat, had, in the company of drinkers, many times deliberately hidden an iron knife of the right size in his sufficiently capacious throat, or some kind of conjurer's sheath to simulate it, sinking on top a pretty large mug of beer procured in the name [of the performance], and afterwards would draw out the same again at will (with singular skill) by the point; by I know not what unlucky and crazy recklessness, the day after Easter he had swallowed the same thing to such an extent that it went all the way down into his stomach, and from there he could no longer retrieve it by any artifice. After that, virtually half dead with apprehension of the certain death which was soon to follow, he entertained the said knife for seven whole weeks and two days in his own stomach, or some such lodging place, and by the use and supposed aid of an attractive plaster made of lodestone, and other applications, the point of the knife began by natural impulse to work its way out by way of an opening in the stomach; when this became apparent, it was urgently requested by the patient that it should be taken out by incision, which eventually, with prayers for an outcome of every good fortune, and dubious health, was obtained from the chief surgeon of the Kingdom and the city, Florian Mathis of Brandenburg. And fortunately with God's assent it was successful; the color of the excised knife, which is kept among the Emperor's curiosities, was so changed in his stomach, as if the knife had during that time been exposed to fire. But the peasant, after a few weeks' use of legitimate remedies by the experienced surgeon, restored at last to sound health, a little while later celebrated his marriage. Something similar to this happened in the year 1635, on the 29th of May in Prussia; I have decided to insert this story as rare and worthy of consideration here, on the strength of its description by Becherus Medicus in a special booklet, which he calls the Story of the Knife-eater. A young man of twenty-two from the village of Grinvalde, seven miles from the town of Regiomonte [Königsberg] in Prussia, born under the jurisdiction of a noble man named George de Groben, named Andreas Gronheide; when, on his way to holy service on the 29th of May 1635, he experienced nausea with pain in the stomach

in order to induce himself to vomit, inserted the handle of his knife into his throat, which, when pushed more excitedly, passed into the oesophagus, and was stuck there for two days; bent backwards as if standing on his head, he tried to remove the offending knife, but without success. So after the consumption, with some moaning, of rather copius quantities of beer, the knife was eventually carried down into the stomach, with such remission of the pain that could return to his usual work. However, on his master's advice, on the 20th of June he departed to Königsberg, where on the 23rd of June it was decided by the doctors that this case could be successfully treated, and that its cure should be attempted before the dog days.

Accordingly, on the 29th of June, he took one spoonful from a broth of olive oil and Hypericum, prepared to mitigate the intensity of the pain, but still suffering from this, on the following day he felt a movement of the knife, with a pain in his left side which had previously been on the right. Hence the magnetic plaster was applied. On the 9th of July, after a preliminary dose of balsamic potion, reinforced with aqua carbunculi [?ruby water] and rose water, the patient's peritonaeum was cut by Daniel Suabius, [gall]stone-surgeon to the King of Poland, with a vertical incision four inches in length, where there was a swelling on the left side with periodic pain, especially in the morning hours. Having exposed the stomach, when he had, after a slight incision with the scissors, discovered the knife, he brought the membrane of the stomach gently over the tip of the knife and perforated it with a scalpel, and immediately gripping the knife with the forceps, drew it out, discoloured as if from fire after 45 days' stay in the body, with the sort of sound, indeed with the same felicity, as lips coming together from both sides. The sufferer now back in bed, the wound was cleansed, 5 sutures made in the abdomen, the gaps between them flushed with warm balsam, and other ointments and fomentations applied repeatedly. The sick man, recovered from his eventually healed-up stomach wound, was in a short time restored to his original state of health. As for the image of the knife, sent from Prussia to Naudaeus in Padua, and from there communicated to me, along with its true shape and size, I have seen fit to place it here before your eyes, careful Reader.

[Translator's note: in the last line I have assumed 'ab oculos' to be a misprint for 'ob oculos'.]

In view of this, the question now is whether such a swallowed knife was drawn by the force of the magnetic plaster into the part of the stomach to be cut? I am aware that most Moderns consider that magnetic dust as a plaster is really so attractive that they do not want it to be possible for anything to be drawn from the body unless this dust has been mixed in the plaster. I really think the complete opposite; even though filings of lodestone and free iron are magnetic in themselves and by their own nature, and are wonderfully potent in their attractive force. I say, however, that as soon as the powder has been enclosed and compressed in a tube, it loses all that efficiency of attractive power, through the confusion of its parts re-arranging themselves, all of which I proved in the second part of book 1, Theorem 15. Thus if Magnetic powder is deprived of its power when compressed in a tube for the reasons mentioned, how much more will it be robbed of it when moistened, mixed with other fatty species and reduced to an ointment; whereby, in addition to the confusion of parts which a homogeneous mixing involves, it is amazing how its power is blunted and rendered dull and sluggish, nay rather completely destroyed; therefore let no one hope to be able to draw iron from the human body with the aid of a magnetic dressing without other preparations; because the movement of the knife toward the part of the stomach to be opened is in no way to be attributed to the attractive force of the magnetic powder incorporated in the plaster, but to the balsamic and analytical medicines.

For it is not on account of its attractive force that lodestone is used in such plasters by skilled doctors, but because of its astringent force, in which this sort of powder is very strong. Really on iron & magnetic powder and its attractive force you should consult the quoted theorem. 15. par. 2. of the first book, where we have discussed this powder explicitly. It was a plaster of this flour by which Paracelsus vainly assumed that he could extract the iron part of an arrow from a human body, for he says that lodestone quenched many times in oleum Martis [ferric chloride], or kept in salt of Echeneis, is so strengthened thereby that it can pull a nail out of a wall; a double assertion, and a shameful lie at that. For so far from lodestone gaining greater power when set on fire, in fact it loses completely that power with which benevolent nature has endowed it, as has been abundantly said elsewhere. But where on earth was a little fish [Echeneis] of such portentous power seen by this most insolent impostor? or who ever gave him the salt of this little fish? Who has ever seen gold drawn from a well with its help, as he claims? Is he blind, that does not see lies, impostures, and gossip? Deluded medicines of this kind produced from the same factory of Paracelsus include Usnea, Opodeldoc, the Xenexeton [Zenexton] with its pentacles on a steel ring,

with the serpent and the scorpion placed beneath a particular star and the seal made as the Sun enters Scorpio, attached to the neck, and one will see six hundred similar plasters, inscribed with portentous names approved by Satan, offered and sold from this source, and if you subtract the superstition from them all, what is left earns neither effectiveness nor trust. So abandoning these as frivolities, let us return to our project.

CHAPTER III.

On drawing medicines, whether and how, when taken inside the body, they move the humours, and attract them?

Just as in Lodestone a double force is observed, one by which it draws iron to itself and another by which it repels it, so in medicines there is the helctic [drawing], or epispastic [gathering, blistering], or (which is the same thing) attractive, and there is the apocrustic [astringent], or repulsive; though the attractive and repulsive force differs greatly between the two. For in lodestone it is one and the same force, which is the necessary result of that natural appetite to direct itself to a particular site in accord with its nature, as copiously explained in book 1. In medicines on the other hand the forces differ, from the nature of the thing: the helctic is, more or less, the opposite of the apocrustic, or dispersive, medicine, in that when applied externally it draws the humours, be they watery or thickish, from the centre to the perimeter, and when taken internally it draws them instead from the perimeter to the centre; but the repulsive medicine does everything the other way round. The attraction however is mostly achieved by heat, in which a special force of attraction is inherent, as was said in [stoicheiomagnetism (Book 3, part 2: see p. 407)]. For this, however, if afterwards the substance is tender, and dryness results, it turns out much more successfully. Hence whatever at the completion of the second step is hot and tender will be drawn by the heat; but what already at the third stage holds together they not only do not attract, but they even dissipate what has been attracted and it becomes a metasyncritic [inflammatory] & then a hypercathartic [extreme cleaning] deeply summoning up and dispersing. Those things which overcome by both heat and tenderness as stated, by dissipation stimulate either pustules or vesicles, and give rise to phoenigmus, or reddening; such are Tithymallus [a Euphorbia], cantharides [Spanish Fly], poultices of salt and nitre, as they are very caustic. Furthermore some things have in them a particular capacity for drawing, such as, Aloë, Aristolochia longa, Scopa regia, Cadmia, Tartar, Rabbit fat, Senna, Serapium, Asa foetida, Marjoram, Thabsia, Rhubarb, Sulphur, Pulmones [lungs], Celery, Dictamnus, Scammonea, Petroleum, Caper Spurge, Pennyroyal, Sagapenum [a gum from fennel], and others which for brevity I omit.

Others from putrefaction, such as yeast, the dung of doves, geese and chickens, and whatever comes from a warmer animal. For all dungs or excrements have some sort of drawing power. Others from the likeness of the whole substance, as the scorpion when placed on its wound draws out and recalls the harmful poison which it has ejected; or as do all venemous things, as will be stated later. Things which, applied externally, draw the humours are Anagallis [Pimpernel], whose dark red flower has such capacity to draw that it immediately extracts thorns driven into the body. Euphorbium, Pyrethrum, the seed of Thlaspi [Pennycress], as also Anemone chewed, or the juice poured into the nostrils, also powerfully draws phlegm. Dictamnus and Nasturtium [watercress?], calamint and narcissus, aristilochia longa, when poured on the body draw out wonderfully. Among drawing oils, Balanis [acorn] and Sinapis [mustard] oils display rare effects. Among plasters, those made from melilot, from laurel berries and crocus; likewise from dry pitch, new wax, the soft fat of pigs, black salve: or otherwise sulphur, pyrethrum root, hermodactyl and heat-dried sea salt, made into a plaster in equal proportion, acquire a marvellous propensity to draw, though that power is greatly increased if you add a portion of the listed simples, such as Thlaspi, Dictamnus and soft fat.

Once these are duly made up, the question now is: how, or by what faculty, do the aforesaid medicines draw the humours? Some think that every humour is purged by a single elementary force; that is wrong. For it would follow from this that all hot things, for example, taken internally would show the same purgative effect; which belies experience; but I do not deny that there are some which elicit the humours by heat alone, others only by cold, that is by the force of condensation and rarefaction, or by anteperistatic [compensatory] action; some even applied externally produce, through their favourable qualities, the effect of attraction; as do herbs, potent by means of a digestive or ripening force whereby, as they ripen the affected part by softening, draw out iron, or a thorn, by promoting it to the softer parts, and this force, from the movement which they produce in the object by promoting it, is called an attraction. Some wish the humours to be drawn by medicines by a traction common to everything, just as flesh is drawn by leeches or cupping-glasses, by fear of a vacuum. Actually since this opinion introduces the greatest confusion by disturbing the order of things, there is not much I can say for it. So I, saving the verdict of others, judge that most medicines really draw out humours contained unnaturally in the body, not by some common and promiscuous force, but by a similarity of the whole substance, a built-in family likeness,