Satan, and not the witches, who effects such cures.
Witches claim to heal by means of a messenger, that is to say, by contriving that the messenger shall take the medicine prepared for his master. Dioscor. VI. 46.The hermit of whom Mattioli speaks acted in this manner. He asked the messenger if he would take a medicine for his master; and when the messenger said that he would, he made him take off his right shoe and place his bare foot upon the ground, and then took a knife and with the point traced the form of the messenger’s foot all round, and then told him to raise his foot. Then with the same knife he scratched within the tracing of the foot the following words: Caro Caruse, etc. After this, always with the same knife, he raked up the earth where the words had been scratched until there remained no trace of a letter, and cast the earth into a little earthen pot filled with water. After it had remained for some time in the pot, he strained it through the messenger’s shirt and gave it to him to drink, after having made the sign of the Cross; and by this means the patient was cured without any further mystery. Mattioli adds that he who used this cure was his friend, and that he had seen him use it several times, and that he had even assured him that this cure was the greatest secret of those who boast that they are of the race of St. Paul.
The following examples are similar. When a man is wounded, his doublet is fetched from a distance and a plaster is applied to the opening of it, and the patient is made to drink clear water, and is immediately healed. And if a man is wounded by the Tareronde, they take its tail and apply it to an oak, which withers and dies, and