HUMAN SWEAT.
Human perspiration was believed to be valuable not only as a means of prognosis in some diseases, but its appearance was dreaded in others. If the perspiration of a fever-stricken patient was mixed with dough, baked into bread, and given to a dog, the dog would catch the fever, and the man recover. It was efficacious in driving away scrofulous wens, and in rendering philters abortive. It was narrated that if a man, who under the influence of a philter, was forced to love a girl against his will, would put on a pair of new shoes, and wear them out by walking in them, and then drink wine out of the right shoe, where it could mingle with the perspiration already there, he would promptly be cured of his love, and hate take its place.
This corresponds closely to the urine case already noted; and it is proper to repeat Flemming’s own words on the matter: “Narrant quod, si quis philtro fascinatus era fuerit, ad amandam præter voluntatem virginem, ut is noves induat calces, miliareque unum obambulando conficiat, quo sudor animadvertatur postque vinum e calceo dextri pedis sudore madido, hauriat, sic ab illicito amore liberari amoremque in odium converti dicunt.”—(“De Remediis,” p. 19.)
See Etmuller, who used it in scrofula, lib. ii. p. 265; Pliny, lib. 28; Galen and Avicenna (sweat of gladiators), vol. i. p. 398, a 17, and elsewhere.