result of this _Archaeus_, a spiritual activity, working in a very mysteriously complicated way, for both evil and good. It has been said that he was one of Lord Bacon's disciples, but for that assertion there certainly is no sufficient foundation, for Bacon, if a mystic by inclination, was logical in reasoning. In England Van Helmont had an English follower in the person of another physician, Dr. Fludd, a disciple of the famous inventor of the camera obscura, and conjecturally the first photographer. His grand quack remedy was "the powder of sympathy," which was the "sword-salve" of Paracelsus (composed of moss taken from the skull of a gibbetted murderer, of warm human blood, human suet, linseed oil, turpentine, etc.). This was applied, not to the wound, but to the sword that inflicted it, kept "in a cool place!" Certain plants pulled up with the left hand were regarded as a sure remedy in fever cases, but the gatherer, while gathering, was not to look behind, for that deprived the plants of their medicinal value. Amongst other physicians of Shakespeare's century was Mr. Valentine Greatrake, who came to London from Ireland, where his supposed magical cures had been awakening a great sensation. He hired a large house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to which vast crowds of patients of all kinds and conditions crowded daily, all clamouring to be cured. He received them in their order, says an eye-witness, with "a grave and simple countenence." For, as Shakespeare wrote, "Thus credulous fools are caught." ("Comedy of Errors," 1, 2.) Greatrake (afterwards executed for high treason) asserted that every diseased person was possessed by a devil, and that by his prayers and laying on of hands the devil could be cast out. Lord Conway sent for him to cure an incurable disease from which his wife was suffering, and even some of the most learned and eminent people of the time were amongst his patrons. St. Evremond wrote, "You can hardly imagine what a reputation he gained in a short time. Catholics and Protestants visited him from every part, all believing that power from heaven was in his hands." In an Act of Parliament which was passed in the year 1511, we read, in its preamble, that "the science and cunning of Physic and Surgery" was exercised by "a great multitude of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no manner of insight in the same, nor in any other kind of learning--some also can read no letters in the book--so far forth that common artificers, as smiths, weavers, and women, boldly and accostumably took upon them great cures, and things of great difficulty, in which they partly used sorceries and witchcraft, and partly supplied such medicines unto the diseased as are very noisome, and nothing meet therefore; to the high displeasure of God," etc. A large number of the pretended remedies thus used in medical practice are clearly traceable back to the ancient Magi, who were professors of medicine, as well as priests and astrologers.