374 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



one in particular, which he declares "cannot but be free 

 from all suspect of imposture and illusion of the Devil." 1 



"A certain inhabitant of Bruxels in a combat had his 

 nose mowed off, and addressed himself to Tagliacozzus, a 

 famous Chirurgeon, living at Bononia, that he might pro- 

 cure a new one; and when he feared the incision of his 

 own arm, he hired a Porter to admit it, out of whose arm, 

 having first given the reward agreed upon, at length he 

 dig'd a new nose. About thirteen moneths after his re- 

 turn to his own Countrey, on a sudden the ingrafted nose 

 grew cold, putrified, and within a few days drop't off. To 

 those of his friends that were curious in the exploration 

 of the cause of this unexpected misfortune, it was discov- 

 ered that the Porter expired neer about the same punctilio 

 of time wherein the nose grew frigid and cadaverous." 2 



u There are at Bruxels yet surviving some of good re- 

 pute that were eye witnesses of these occurrences," he 

 adds, gravely, oblivious of the difficulties of eye-witnessing 

 events simultaneously happening in Bruxels and Bononia. 

 "But," he demands, triumphantly, " is not this Magnet- 

 ism of manifest affinity with mummy, 3 whereby the nose, 

 enjoying, by title and right of inoculation, a community 

 of life, sense and vegetation for so many months, on a 

 sudden mortified on the other side of the Alpes? I pray, 

 what is there in this of superstition? what of attent and 

 exalted Imagination?" 



Of course, there were people the anatomists especially 

 who were not quite satisfied with such evidence, and 

 demanded more definite and physical explanations. But 

 Van Helmont was ready with the retort irrelevant, which 

 in one form or another is still the most serviceable reply in 

 the dialectic armament of the "magneto-therapist." 



"Go to, I beseech thee !" he says haughtily. "Does 



1 Charleton : Supra, p. 13. 



2 This story is evidently the basis of M. Edmond About's novel, The 

 Nose of a Notary. See, also, Tatler, Dec. 7, 1710, No. 260. 



3 The bodily humor of Paracelsus, see p. 222. 



