8. There is no one Argument that doth more confirm, that what effects soever Devils, or those called Witches do bring to pass in humane bodies, are wrought by natural means, and proceed from natural causes: Because what diseases soever are cured by natural causes and agents, must of necessity be brought into humane bodies by natural means. But many diseases attributed to the Devil, or Witches as instruments, have been cured by natural means and applications, as we shall prove both by authorities and matters of fact. And therefore those diseases must of necessity grow and arise from natural causes. And for authority we find Helmont affirming thus much: “And also partly the curing of these diseases is to be had by certain Simples, to which the omnipotent goodness hath given a gift from the beginning of the Creation, of resisting, preventing and correcting of Veneficia, Witchcrafts, or poysonings, and of bringing forth things injected. For (he saith) certain Simples do drive away evil spirits (a miserable company of Men, who give worship to Gods, that are not able to resist the natural efficacy of Simples) and reckons some that take away the penetration of the formal light tied to the excrements. Some do hinder the touch, entrance or application. And that there are many such like, that do correct the poysons, and kill them. And chiefly he commendeth the Electrum minerale immaturum of Paracelsus, the Phu of Dioscorides, being a kind of Valerian with purple flowers, and likewise there commemorateth diverse others.
Useful of Exper. Philos. p. 214.
Hist. 8.
Ut supra p. 217.
Hist. 9.
To confirm this assertion of Helmonts, we shall transcribe what the Honourable person Mr. Boyle hath set down to this purpose. “Since the beginning of this Essay (he saith) I saw a lusty, and very sprightful Boy, child to a famous Chymical Writer, (I judge it to be Joachimus Poleman) who as his Father assured me and others, being by some enemies of this Physicians, when he was yet an infant, so bewitcht that he constantly lay in miserable torment, and still refusing the breast, was reduced by pain and want of food, to a desperate condition, the experienced relator of the story remembring that Helmont attributes to the Electrum minerale immaturum Paracelsi, the virtue of relieving those, whose distempers come from Witchcraft, did according to Helmonts prescription hang a piece of this noble mineral about the infants neck, so that it might touch the pit of the Stomach; whereupon presently the child, that could not rest in I know not how many dayes and nights before, fell for a while asleep, and waking well cried for the Teat, which he greedily suckt, from thenceforth hastily recovering, to the great wonder both of the Parents, and several others that were astonisht at so great and quick a change. And though I am not forward (he saith) to impute all those diseases to Witchcraft, which even learned Men father upon it; yet it’s considerable in our present case, that whatsoever were the cause of the disease, the distemper was very great, and almost hopeless, and the cure suddenly performed by an outward application, and that of a Mineral, in which compacted sort of bodies the finer parts are thought to be lockt up.” Another example he giveth us in these words: “The same Henricus ab Heer among his freshly commended observations, hath another of a little Lady, whom he concludes to have been cast into the strange and terrible distemper, which he there particularly records, by Witchcraft. Upon so severe an examination of the Symptomes made by himself in his own house, that if, notwithstanding his solemn professions of veracity, he mis-relate them not, I cannot wonder he should confidently impute so prodigious a disease to some supernatural cause. But though the observation, with its various circumstances, be very well worth your perusing; yet that, for which I here take notice of it is, what he adds about the end of it, concerning his having cured her, after he had in despair of her recovery sent her back to her Parents, by an outward medicine, namely, an Oyntment which he found extolled against pains produced by Witchcraft, in a Dutch book of Carrichter’s (where also I remember I met with it set down a little differently from what he delivers.)”
Observ. Medic. 34. p. 127.
Hist. 10.
But to conclude this tedious particular, I shall only add one observation more from learned Salmuth, which is this: “The servant Maid (he saith) of Cæsars à Breitenbach was taken with a most intense pain of her left arm, which when it did not at all remit or abate, but that the dolour was augmented more and more, and that no tumour, nor any other preternatural thing did outwardly appear, the beholders did fear some sort of venefice or Witchcraft. Therefore they apply a well tryed medicine, which in such a case is said to be much approved, to wit red Corals well beaten with the leaves of Oak, and with Rose-water brought into the form of a Cataplasm, and leave it on for the space of 24 hours. In which space of time the place is brought to suppuration, and within as many more hours, the same remedy being applyed again, the abscess is broken, and in it needles, hairs and burnt coals are found. All these together with the Amulet they put into an hole made with an Augur or Gimlet in the root of an Oak, towards the East, in the morning before the Sun rise, and they stopped up the same hole with a wedge or pin, made of the wood of the same Tree. The pain thereupon plainly ceaseth, and the place is with other medicaments brought to Cicatrization. But some deriding such things, and thinking them to be prestigious delusions, do pull them forth of the hole again. Hereupon forthwith that miserable servant was again afflicted with cruel pains, more raging than the former. Therefore they repeat the former medicaments, and more copious matter doth issue forth, which being taken together with the Amulet, and put in the former place in the Oak, all the pains did forthwith vanish, and she afterwards lived altogether sound.” And so I conceive that by these reasons, authorities and instances of matters of fact, it is sufficiently proved, that what Devils or Witches work in humane bodies or in corporeal matter, is by applying fit actives to suitable passives, and so the effects are only produced by natural causes and means, which was the thing I undertook to make good.
The next thing that in this Chapter we have to consider and examine is the opinion of Johannes Baptista van Helmont, that great Physician, Philosopher and Chymist, which we shall open in these particulars.