in "The Tempest" (Act V, Sc. I) makes Ariel say, in reference
to the wound received by Hippolito from Ferdinand:

"He must be dress'd again, as I have done it.
Anoint the sword which pierced him with this weapon-salve,
and wrap it close from air, till I have
time to visit him again."

And in the next scene we have the following dialogue between
Hippolito and Miranda:

"_Hip._ O my wound pains me.

_Mir._ I am come to ease you.

[_She unwraps the sword._

_Hip._ Alas! I feel the cold air come to me;
My wound shoots worse than ever.

[_She wipes and anoints the sword._

_Mir._ Does it still grieve you?

_Hip._ Now methinks, there's something
Laid just upon it.

_Mir._ Do you find ease?

_Hip._ Yes, yes, upon the sudden, all the pain
Is leaving me. Sweet heaven, how I am eased!"

Werenfels says: "If the superstitious person be wounded by any chance,
he applies the salve, not to the wound, but, what is more effectual,
to the weapon by which he received it. By a new kind of art, he will
transplant his disease, like a scion, and graft it into what tree he
pleases."

The practice at the time was varied and general. All sorts of
disgusting ingredients were gathered together to form the salve. Some
idea of the condition of the science of medicine at that time may be
gathered when we remember that a serious discussion was long
maintained between two factions in the sympathetic school concerning
the question "whether it was necessary that the moss should grow
absolutely in the skull of a thief who had hung on the gallows, and
whether the ointment, while compounding, was to be stirred with a
murderer's knife."

There is no doubt that the sympathetic cures were really the most
rapid and effective. The modern surgeon wonders how a wound ever
healed prior to this treatment. There seemed to be little that could
be imagined to prevent a wound from healing that the pre-sympathetic
surgeon did not try. When the manipulations, doses, and treatments
were transferred from the wound to the weapon, they did not injure the
weapon, and did give the wound a chance to heal. In fact, leaving out
the weapon part of the treatment, which could have none but a mental
influence, the treatment would be recommended to-day. The wound was
kept clean, the edges were brought in apposition, temperature was
modified, and rest given. Under these circumstances, wounds which the
surgeon had irrita