unaccountable than the belief in the so-called sympathetic remedies. There is abundant material for a long chapter on this particular manifestation of faith in the impossible, but a few prominent instances of the remarkable method of treatment comprised in the designation will suffice to prove that it was seriously adopted by men capable of thinking intelligently.
The germ of the idea goes back to very early ages. Dr. J. G. Frazer, the famous authority on primitive beliefs, traces the commandment in the Pentateuch, "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk," to an ancient prejudice against the boiling of milk in any circumstances, on the ground that this would cause suffering to the animal which yielded the milk. If the suffering could be thus conveyed, it was logical to believe that healing was similarly capable of transference.
Pliny (quoted by Cornelius Agrippa) says: "If any person shall be sorry for a blow he has given another, afar off or near at hand, if he shall presently spit into the middle of the hand with which he gave the blow, the party that was smitten shall presently be free from pain."
Paracelsus developed the notion with the confidence which he was wont to bestow on theories which involved far-fetched explanations. This was his formula for "Unguentum Sympatheticum":—
Take 4 oz. each of boar's and bear's fat, boil slowly for half an hour, then pour on cold water. Skim off the floating bit, rejecting that which sinks. (The older the animals yielding the fat, the better.)
Take of powdered burnt worms, of dried boar's brain, of red sandal wood, of mummy, of bloodstone, 1 oz. of each. Then collect 1 drachm of the moss from the skull of a man who died a violent death, one who had
