" said he; "know that I am the chirurgeon here,
for want of a better. This is going on thy leg; to cool it, not to burn
it; the saints forbid."

During the operation the monastic leech, who had naturally been
interested by the Dusseldorf branch of Gerard's confession, rather sided
with Denys upon "bleeding." "We Dominicans seldom let blood nowadays;
the lay leeches say 'tis from timidity and want of skill; but, in sooth,
we have long found that simples will cure most of the ills that can
be cured at all. Besides, they never kill in capable hands; and other
remedies slay like thunderbolts. As for the blood, the Vulgate saith
expressly it is the life of a man.' And in medicine or law, as in
divinity, to be wiser than the All-wise is to be a fool. Moreover,
simples are mighty. The little four-footed creature that kills the
poisonous snake, if bitten herself, finds an herb powerful enough to
quell that poison, though stronger and of swifter operation than any
mortal malady; and we, taught by her wisdom, and our own traditions,
still search and try the virtues of those plants the good God hath
strewed this earth with, some to feed men's bodies, some to heal them.
Only in desperate ills we mix heavenly with earthly virtue. We steep
the hair or the bones of some dead saint in the medicine, and thus work
marvellous cures."

"Think you, father, it is along of the reliques? for Peter a Floris, a
learned leech and no pagan, denies it stoutly."

"What knows Peter a Floris? And what know I? I take not on me to say
we can command the saints, and will they nill they, can draw corporal
virtue from their blest remains. But I see that the patient drinking
thus in faith is often bettered as by a charm. Doubtless faith in the
recipient is for much in all these cures. But so 'twas ever. A sick
woman, that all the Jewish leeches failed to cure, did but touch
Christ's garment and was healed in a moment. Had she not touched that
sacred piece of cloth she had never been healed. Had she without faith
not touched it only, but worn it to her grave, I trow she had been none
the better for't. But we do ill to search these things too curiously.
All we see around us calls for faith. Have then a little patience.
We shall soon know all. Meantime, I, thy confessor for the nonce, do
strictly forbid thee, on thy soul's health, to hearken learned lay folk
on things religious. Arrogance is their bane; with it they shut heaven's
open door in their own face