158 PARACELSUS 



a waxen image made in his name, she surrounds it 

 with a cloth spotted with the menstrual blood, and 

 throws the reflex of the mirror through the opening 

 in the middle of the head of the figure, or upon 

 some other part of his body, using at the same time 

 her evil imagination and curses; and the man whom 

 the image represents will then have his vitality dried 

 up and his blood poisoned by that evil influence, and 

 become diseased, and his body covered with boils. 

 Such is the ^ pestis particular is,' which may be known 

 if it afiects a man who has not been near any other 

 persons or places from which he might have caught the 



" But if a witch desires to poison a man with her eyes, 

 she will go to a place where she expects to meet him. 

 When he approaches she will look into the poisoned 

 mirror, and then, after hiding the mirror, look into his 

 eyes, and the influence of the poison passes from the 

 mirror into her eyes, and from her eyes into the eyes 

 of that person ; but the witch cures her own eyes by 

 making a fire and staring into it, and then taking the 

 menstrual cloth, and, after tying it around a stone, 

 throwing it into the fire. After the cloth is burned 

 she extinguishes the fire with her urine, and her eyes 

 will be cured ; but her enemy will become blind " 

 {De Pestilitate). 



" There are, furthermore, certain substances used by 

 witches and sorcerers which they give to other persons 

 in their food or drink, and by which they render those 

 persons insane, and such an insanity manifests itself in 

 various ways. Sometimes it renders men or women 

 amorous, or it makes them quarrelsome ; it causes them 

 to be very courageous and daring, or turns them into 

 cowards. Some will fall deeply in love with the person who 

 administered to them such philtres ; and it has happened 

 that in this way masters and mistresses have fallen deeply 

 in love with the servants who administered to them such 



