Among the articles which fantastic superstition, or theories not less fantastic had introduced into the _materia medica_, there were some which seemed more appropriate to the purposes of magic than of medicine, and some of an atrocious kind. Human fat was used as an unguent,—that of infants as a cosmetic. Romances mention baths of children's blood; and there were times and countries in which such a remedy was as likely to be prescribed, as imagined in fiction. It was believed that deadly poisons might be extracted from the human body;—and they who were wicked enough to administer the product, would not be scrupulous concerning the means whereby it was procured. One means indeed was by tormenting the living subject. To such practices no doubt Harrison alludes when, speaking, in Elizabeth's reign, of those who graduated in the professions of law or physic, he says, “one thing only I mislike in them, and that is their usual going into Italy, from whence very few without special grace do return good men, whatever they pretend of conference or practice; chiefly the physicians, who under pretence of seeking of foreign simples, do oftentimes learn the framing of such compositions as were better unknown than practised, as I have often heard alleged.” The suspicion of such practices attached more to the Jewish than to any other physicians, because of the hatred with which they were supposed to regard all Christians, a feeling which the populace in every country, and very frequently the Rulers also did every thing to deserve. The general scandal of atheism lay against the profession; but to be a Jew was in common opinion to be worse than an atheist, and calumnies were raised against the Jew Physicians on the specific ground of their religion, which, absurd and monstrous as they were, popular credulity was ready to receive. One imputation was that they made it a point of conscience to kill one patient in five, as a sacrifice of atonement for the good which they had done to the other four. Another was that the blood of a Christian infant was always administered to a Jewess in child-bed, and was esteemed so necessary an ingredient in their superstitious ceremonies or their medical practice at such times, that they exported it in a dried and pulverized form to Mahommedan countries, where it could not be obtained fresh.