Long before and long after New Testament days when Jesus used spittle on the blind, and the time when Vespasian healed the blind by the same means, spittle was considered a most efficacious remedy for various diseases. Levinus Lemnius tells us: "Divers experiments shew what power and quality there is in Man's fasting Spittle, when he hath neither eat nor drunk before the use of it: for it cures all tetters, itch, scabs, pushes, and creeping sores: and if venomous little beasts have fastened on any part of the body, as hornets, beetles, toads, spiders, and such like, that by their venome cause tumours and great pains and inflammations, do but rub the place with fasting Spittle, and all those effects will be gone and dispersed. Since the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours, (for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of Nature, as Fire draws distilled Water from hearbs) the reason may be easily understood why Spittle should do such strange things, and destroy some creatures."[127] In _Saxon Leechdoms_ a cure for gout runs thus: "Before getting out of bed in the morning, spit on your hand, rub all your sinuews, and say, 'Flee, gout, flee,' etc." Sir Thomas Browne, however, is not quite sure that fasting spittle really is poisonous to snakes and vipers. Alexander of Tralles tells us that even Galen did homage to incantations, and quotes him as saying: "Some think that incantations are like old wives' tales; as I did for a long while. But at last I was convinced that there is virtue in them by plain proofs before my eyes. For I had trial of their beneficial operations in the case of those scorpion-stung, nor less in the case of bones stuck fast in the throat, immediately, by an incantation thrown up. And many of them are excellent, severally, and they reach their mark." Even before our day, however, there were some sceptics. Andrews, quoting Reginald Scot, says: "The Stories which our facetious author relates of ridiculous Charms which, by the help of credulity, operated Wonders, are extremely laughable. In one of them a poor Woman is commemorated who cured all diseases by muttering a certain form of Words over the party afflicted; for which service she always received one penny and a loaf of bread. At length, terrified by menaces of flames both in this world and the next, she owned that her whole conjuration consisted in these potent lines, which she always repeated in a low voice near the head of her patient: 'Thy loaf in my hand, And thy penny in my purse, Thou art never the better-- And I am never the worse.'" Lord Northampton quite fittingly inquires: "What godly reason can any Man alyve alledge why Mother Joane of Stowe, speaking these wordes, and neyther more nor lesse, 'Our Lord was the fyrst Man, That ever Thorne prick'd upon: It never blysted nor it never belted, And I pray God, nor this not may,' should cure either Beasts, or Men and Women from Diseases?"[128]