_Mir._ I am come to ease you. [_Unwrapping the sword._ _Hip._ Alas! I feel the cold air come to me. My wound shoots worse than ever. [_Miranda wipes and anoints the sword._ _Mir._ Does it still grieve you? _Hip._ Now, methinks, there’s something laid just upon it. _Mir._ Do you find no ease? _Hip._ Yes, yes; upon the sudden all the pain Is leaving me; Sweet heaven, how I am eased. Lastly, in the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Scott alludes to this same superstition in the lines But she has ta’en the broken lance And washed it from the clotted gore And salved the splinter o’er and o’er. It would appear from the explanations already given that by washing the gore away she destroyed the communication between the wound and the remedy. ANIMAL MAGNETISM. The first allusion to the application of the magnet as a cure for disease is found in the works of Aetius, who wrote in the early part of the sixth century. He mentions that holding a magnet in the hand is said to give relief in gout. He does not profess to have tested this treatment himself. Writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries recommend it strongly for toothache, headache, convulsions, and nerve disorders. About the end of the seventeenth century magnetic tooth-picks and earpicks were sold. To these were attributed the virtues of preventing and healing pains in those organs. Paracelsus originated the theory of animal magnetism. The mysterious properties possessed by the loadstone and transferable from that body to iron, were according to Paracelsus an influence drawn directly from the stars and possessed by all animate beings. It was a fluid which he called Magnale. By it he explained the movements of certain plants which follow the course of the sun, and it was on the basis of this hypothesis that he composed his sympathetic ointment and explained the action of talismans. Paracelsus applied the magnet in epilepsy, and also prepared a magisterium magnetis. Glauber professed to have a secret magnet which would draw only the essence or tincture from iron, leaving the gross body behind. With this he made a tincture of Mars and Venus, thus “robbing the dragon of the golden fleece which it guards.” This is understood to mean that he dissolved iron and copper in aqua fortis. And as Jason restored his aged father to youth again, so would this tincture prove a wonderful restorative. He commenced to test it on one occasion and very soon black curly hair began to grow on his bald head. But he had not enough of the tincture to permit him to carry on the experiment, and though he had a great longing to make some more, he apparently put off doing so until it was too late.