There
was the well-known leading case of the Bride of Corinth, for example. And
but yesterday, as it were, at Crossen in Silesia, did not Christopher
Monig, an apothecary's servant, come back after being buried, and do
duty, as if nothing particular had happened, putting up prescriptions as
usual, and "pounding drugs in the mortar with a mighty noise"?
Apothecaries seem to have been special victims of these Satanic pranks,
for another appeared at Reichenbach not long before, affirming that, "he
had poisoned several men with his drugs," which certainly gives an air of
truth to the story. Accordingly the Devil is represented as being
unpleasantly cold to the touch. "Caietan escrit qu'une sorciere demanda
un iour au diable pourquoy il ne se rechauffoit, qui fist response qu'il
faisoit ce qu'il pouuoit." Poor Devil! But there are cases in which the
demon is represented as so hot that his grasp left a seared spot as black
as charcoal. Perhaps some of them came from the torrid zone of their
broad empire, and others from the thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.
Those who were not satisfied with the dead-body theory contented
themselves, like Dr. More, with that of "adscititious particles," which
has, to be sure, a more metaphysical and scholastic flavor about it.
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