FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of the _Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe. In this _Experiment_, upon the Relation of _Men of Credit_, (though my selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note the _Points_ following; First, the _Ointment_... is made of Divers _ingredients_; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the Mosse upon the _Skull_ of a _dead Man, Vnburied_; And the _Fats_ of a _Boare_, and a _Beare_, killed in the _Act of Generation_. These Two last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if the _Experiment_ proved not, it mought be pretended, that the _Beasts_ were not killed in due Time; For as for the _Mosse_, it is certain there is great Quantity of it in _Ireland_, upon _Slain Bodies_, laid on _Heaps, Vnburied_. The other _Ingredients_ are, the _Bloud-Stone_ in _Powder_, and some other _Things_, which seeme to have a _Vertue_ to _Stanch Bloud_; As also the _Mosse_ hath.... Secondly, the same _kind_ of _Ointment_, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not the _Effect_; but onely applied to the _Weapon_..... Fourthly, it may be applied to the _Weapon_, though the Party Hurt be at a great Distance. Fifthly, it seemeth the _Imagination_ of the Party, to be _Cured_, is not needfull to Concurre; For it may be done without the knowledge of the _Party Wounded_; And thus much hath been tried, that the _Ointment_ (for _Experiments_ sake,) hath been wiped off the _Weapon_, without the knowledge of the _Party Hurt_, and presently the _Party Hurt_, hath been in great _Rage of Paine_, till the _Weapon_ was _Reannointed_. Sixthly, it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the _Weapon_, yet if you put an _Instrument_ of _Iron_, or _Wood_, resembling the _Weapon_, into the _Wound_, whereby it bleedeth, the _Annointing_ of that _Instrument_ will serve, and work the _Effect_. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep this strange _Forme of Cure_, in Request, and Use; Because many times you cannot come by the _Weapon_ it selve. Seventhly, the _Wound_ be at first _Washed clean_ with _White Wine_ or the _Parties_ own _Water_; And then bound up close in _Fine Linen_ and no more _Dressing_ renewed, till it be _whole_."(1) (1) FRANCIS BACON: _Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History... Published after the Authors death... The sixt Edition_ ù.. (1651), p. 217. Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine specimens.