This it does by sucking out the dolorous and exotic impression
from the wounded part. But to do this it has to implore the aid
of the bull's fat, and other portions of the unguent. The reason
why bull's fat is so powerful is that the bull at the time of
slaughter is full of secret reluctancy and vindictive murmurs,
and therefore dies with a higher flame of revenge about him than
any other animal. And thus we have made it out, says this
author, that the admirable efficacy of the ointment ought to be
imputed, not to any auxiliary concurrence of Satan, but simply to
the energy of the posthumous character of Revenge remaining
firmly impressed upon the blood and concreted fat in the unguent.
J. B. Van Helmont: A Ternary of Paradoxes, translated by Walter
Charleton, London, 1650.--I much abridge the original in my
citations.
The author goes on to prove by the analogy of many other natural
facts that this sympathetic action between things at a distance
is the true rationale of the case. "If," he says, "the heart of
a horse slain by a witch, taken out of the yet reeking carcase,
be impaled upon an arrow and roasted, immediately the whole witch
becomes tormented with the insufferable pains and cruelty of the
fire, which could by no means happen unless there preceded a
conjunction of the spirit of the witch with the spirit of the
horse.
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