440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



no less orthodox in this respect than Catholicism, and such theo- 

 logical jurists as Carpzov, Damhouder, and Calov did their work 

 thoroughly ; the most moderate of authorities on this subject 

 places the number of victims thus sacrificed during that century 

 in Germany alone at over a hundred thousand. 



Among the methods of this witch activity especially credited 

 in central and southern Europe was the anointing of city walls 

 and pavements with a diabolical unguent causing pestilence. In 

 1530 Michael Caddo was executed with fearful tortures for thus 

 besmearing the pavements of Geneva ; but far more dreadful 

 was the torturing to death of a large body of people at Milan, a 

 hundred years later, for producing the plague by anointing the 

 city walls. This case in Milan may be briefly summarized as 

 showing the ideas of all classes from highest to lowest on sani- 

 tary science in the seventeenth century. That city was then 

 under the control of Spain, and its authorities having received 

 from the Spanish Government notice that certain persons sus- 

 pected of witchcraft had recently left Madrid, and had perhaps 

 gone to Milan to anoint the walls, this communication was dwelt 

 upon in the pulpits as another evidence of that satanic malice 

 which the Church alone had the means of resisting, and the 

 people were thus excited and put upon the alert. One morning, 

 in the year 1G30, an old woman, looking out of her window, saw 

 a man walking along the street and wiping his fingers upon the 

 walls; she immediately called the attention of another old 

 woman, and they agreed that this man must be one of the 

 diabolical anointers. It was perfectly evident to a person under 

 ordinary conditions that this unfortunate man was simply trying 

 to remove from his fingers the ink gathered while writing from 

 the ink-horn which he carried in his girdle; but this explana- 

 tion was too simple to satisfy those who first observed him or 

 those who afterward tried him : a mob was raised and he was 

 thrown into prison. Being tortured, he at first did not know 

 what to confess; but, on inquiring from the jailer and others, 

 he learned what the charge was, and on being again submitted 

 to torture utterly beyond endurance, he confessed everything 

 which was suggested to him ; and on being tortured again and 

 again to give the names of his accomplices, he accused, at hazard, 

 the first people in the city whom he thought of. These, being 

 arrested and tortured beyond endurance, confessed and impli- 

 cated a still greater number, until members of the foremost 

 families were included in the charge. Again and again all these 

 unfortunates were tortured beyond endurance. Under paganism 

 the rule regarding torture had been that it should not be carried 

 beyond human endurance ; and we therefore find Cicero ridicul- 

 ing it as a means of detecting crime, because a stalwart criminal 



