Published Originally in 1600s
Source: Earth English Books
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash DEFINITION. A Disease of Witchcraft is a Sickness that arises from strange and preternatural Causes, and from Diabolical Power in the use of strange and ridiculous Ceremonies by Witches or Necromancers, afflicting with strange and unaccustomed Symptoms, and commonly preternaturally violent, very seldom or not at all curable by Ordinary and Natural Remedies.
SIGNS DIAGNOSTICAL. I. If the Sick voids things that naturally cannot be bred in the Body, Page 4 nor put therein from without, distrust Witchcraft: If they void Rose-Bryars an hand length, Sticks, Thorns, and Bones by Stool; as Thomas Bromhall of strange Apparitions, testifies, page 122.
If after, and with violent and preternatural pains, the Sick vomits gallons of Blood, or the like goes by Urine, and so continues day by day, and void 1200 Worms at a time, or several hundreds, and so continues, judge it Fascination: That there have been such, see Tho. Bartholin, Historiae Anatomicae, and Sebastianus Brand.
A Physician of my Acquaintance told me he examined strictly Eye-Witnesses, in one Town where he was, and where it was a report, that a Maid bewitched, vomited Wool, Hair, Needles, Pins, &c. and they assured him of the Truth, that it was so; and the like have I heard of some tried formerly at some Assizes of this Kingdom.
One vomited Thorns of the Sloe-Tree, and Hooks, as Christoph. Rum∣baus in Obs. testifies. Another vomited Cloth, pieces of Iron, Stones, and Bones; and a Maid voided downwards Pitch and Soap, Stones, and pieces of Bones, which also she cast up by vomiting, being much pained at Stomach, and made very lean, died at last, Forestus, Obs. Med. Lib. 18. Schol. ad Observ. 26.
But, One Swallow (as the Proverb is) makes no Summer: Vis unita fortior, & quae non prosunt singula juncta juvant; In the multitude of Wit∣nesses there is sure Testimony; specially they not allured by Gain, or obliged by Interest, or superstitionated by Education, or forced by rigour of Authority, but one writ in one place, another in another; one in one Country, another in another; one in one Age, another in another; one the Judge, the other the Physician: so that they held no confederacy to cheat future Ages, but writ their clear Experience; which Experience induced them to believe such things; as indeed what can any man know truly, but by Experience? for else it is but Imagination, Conceit, or Phansie, which onely casually, and by chance is true: And if our Country and Age did not witness to what Authors have writ in other Countries and Ages, it might be suspected; yet we have not one Witch to one hundred that be in other Countreys, and fewer than formerly; and therefore the fewer are bewitched: But there are many bewitched which are not thought so, and consequently not cured, that otherwise might; and there are divers thought so, that are not, but their Sickness is referable to natural Causes, and found by the Scrutinous in the legitimate Order of Nature. We will draw up all Observations to this first Diagnostick Sign briefly.
Those that vomit, or void by stool, with greater or less torments,
To be continued....
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