1. He reciteth a large Catalogue of things, that are in a most strange manner brought or injected into the bodies of Men and Women, as darts, thorn-pricks, or pins, chaff, hairs, dust of wood that hath been sawed, little stones, egg-shels and pieces of pots, hulls and husks or swads, insects, things of linen, needles and the instruments of artificers, which have been injected insensibly, and entred altogether in an invisible manner, but were detained and ejected with direful pains and tortures. And that sometimes they are greater than the holes or passages by which they are intromitted.
Hist. 1.
Hist. 2.
2. And to confirm this assertion he bringeth instances of matters of fact, as these following. “For (he saith) of late there was a part of an Oxe hide injected by the pores of the skin, it being intire, which the Chirurgeon did draw forth with a pair of Forceps, it being of the magnitude of the ball of a Mans hand, the Apostume first being ripened. And a Witch burned at Bruges, did confess, that she had injected that hide into the good man. So (he saith) we have in times past seen at Lira the children of Orphans to have cast up by vomit an artificial Horse and Cart, drawn forth by the hands of the by-standers; to wit a four footed board accompanied with its ropes, and wheel. And what way soever it were placed, it was easily greater than the double throat. Further he saith, I have seen at Antwerp in the year 1622. a young Maid, who had vomited, perhaps two thousand pins conglomerated together, and with them hairs and filth. Another Maid (he saith) at Mechlin in the year 1631, who we being present, did vomit up shavings of wood or chips, cut off in plaining with the Hatchet, with much slimy stuff, to the magnitude of two fists. It is (he saith) a frequent thing every where admitted by learned Men.” Upon which we will only give these Animadversions.
Anim. 1.
Pract. l. 7. c. 25.
Hist. 3.
Hist. Rar. Anat. Cen. 1. Hist. 52. p. 73.
Hist. 4.
1. That things as strange as these, that Helmont seems to avouch of his own sight and knowledge, are also attested by other persons of great learning and credit, as, besides what we have immediately before shewed from Salmuth, of the needles, hairs and burnt coals that came forth of the Maids arm, these examples may ratifie. We will pass by Sprenger, Bodin, Remigius and Del Rio as Pontificial Authors, and therefore partial and interested, only in the first place we shall give this from Alexander Benedictus, who telleth this: “That he saw two Women his neighbours upon one day, being infected by potions of evil medicaments, who afterwards were wonderfully tormented with strange vomitings: That the one cast up with great strainings an head bodkin very great bended like an hook, with a great lump of Womens hair, wrapped with the pairing of nails, who died the day following. The other vomited up a Womans Quoif, pieces of glass, with three dried pieces of a Dogs tail that was hairy, so that she had voided by vomiting as much, (if set together,) as would have equalized the quantity of the whole tail. But the most strange story that possibly can be read is recorded by Thomas Bartholinus who was Physician to Frederick the third King of Denmark, of Anna Erici, who vomited up at several times a piece of sharp wood, great store of black blood, an hem or fring of silk or linen cloath of a blew colour, sowed with a green thred, in which were hid three pieces of lead, two pieces of glass, three Almonds, three pieces of a Tobacco-pipe, and white stones or flints: And afterwards many other horrid, strange and incredible things that may be read in the place quoted in the Margent.