Sir Francis Bacon records a cure of
warts: he took a piece of lard with the skin on it, and after rubbing
the warts with it the lard was exposed out of a southern window to
putrify, and the warts wore away as it putrified. Harvey tried to remove
tumours and excrescences by putting the hand of a dead person that had
died of a lingering disease upon them till the part felt cold. In
general the application was effective.
This idea of cure by sympathy retained its hold on the people till this
century, and is not yet entirely gone.
There was another theory, which we may call the magnetic theory. The
philosophy of this theory contended that "The body when diseased
resembled a gun; when loaded, it contains powder and ball, which, by the
mere touch of a little spring, sets the whole machinery of the gun in
motion, whereby the ball is expelled. So also the mere touch or outward
contact of certain bodies or substances has power, like a magnet, to set
in action the machinery of nature by which the disease is
dispelled--sometimes slowly, but often suddenly like the bullet from the
gun.
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