CHAPTER VIII

Of the Different Diseases Brought by Demons.
Argument.
VICENNA and Galen and Hip- ee deny that itis possible for any diseases to be brought upon man by demons; and their view is followed by Pietro Pomponazzi* and Levin Lemne,} not because they did not be- lieve that the demons, which they acknowledged to be evil, wished to Cause disease, but because they held that every disease is due to natu- ral causes. But that is no good argu- ment: for is it not possible for sicknesses to spring from natural causes, and at the same time possible for demons to be the _instiga- tors of such sicknesses? The contrary
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* “Pietro Pomponazzi.” 1492-1525: Phil- osopher and founder of the Aristotelean-Aver- roistic School. He taught philosophy at Padua, Ferrara, and Bologna. Among his chief works is the *“‘De naturalium effectuum admirandorum causis, siue de incantationibus (1520)” in which he seeks to prove that in Aristotle’s phil- osophy miracles are not possible. The doctrine was condemned and Pomponazzi did not escape in common report the stigma of heresy.
t ‘Levin Lemne.” Or Livin Lemmens, 1505-1508. A Dutch philosopher, born at Kirickzee in Leeland, where also he died. He practised medicine and acquired no small repu- tation in his day. His ““De Miraculis Occultis Naturae Libri IV’? was well esteemed, and was translated into French both by du Pinet (Lyons, 1566) and by Facques Gohory (Paris,
1567).
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opinion is held by Codronchi, Andrea Cesalpino, Jean Fernel,t Franciscus Valesius the Spaniard, and other most learned physicians, together with S. Jerome (on Matt. iii), S. Chrysostom (Homily 54, on Matt. xvii), S. Thomas (I, 2, 115, art. 5), and other theo- logians. The jurists also, especially Burchard § (Decret. XIX, de re magica), argue excellently on the same side. Grilland (2, 6, to number 13) has often been quoted to the same effect: but I prefer the firmer authority of the Holy Scriptures. Did not the devil afflict Job with loathsome sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head? Did not the devil put to an alien use the tongue and ears of him whom S. Matthew calls the Lunatic? Did not a
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devil afflict Saul with a black hum-
our? The ac- count is quite explicit, for it says that an evil spirit afflicted him, which went away when David played the harp.
Let us now see by what method the demon causes sickness. This has been
t “Jean Fernel.”’ Born in 1497; ‘‘le Galien moderne,” physician and master astrologer to Henri II and Diane de Poitiers. He published several works on medicine; ‘‘La Pathologie’ ; “Les VII livres de la physiologie”’; and after his death a ‘“‘Uniuersa Medicina’ containing his various tractates and monographs appeared at Frankfort in 1592.
§ “Burchard.” The famous Bishop of Worms; born shortly after the middle of the tenth century; died 20 August, 1025. His cele- brated “‘Collectartum canonum’’ or *‘ Decretum’? is in twenty books, and was long used as a practical guide for the clergy.
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clearly set forth by Franciscus Vale- sius,* who says that the demon is the external cause of sickness when he comes from without to inhabit a body and bring diseases to it; and if the sickness has some material source he sets in motion its inner causes. Thus he induces the melancholy sickness by first disturbing the black bile in the body and so dispersing a black humour throughout the brain and the inner cells of the body : and this black bile he increases by superinducing other irri- tations and by preventing the purging of the humour. He brings epilepsy, paralysis and such maladies by a stop- page of the heavier physical fluids, ob- structing and blocking the ventricle of the brain and the nerve-roots. He causes blindness or deafness, bringing a noxious secretion in the eyes or ears. Often again he suggests ideas to the imagination which induce love or hatred or other mental disturbances. For the purpose of causing bodily in- firmities he distils a spirituous sub- stance from the blood itself, purifies it of all base matter, and uses it as the aptest, most efficacious and swiftest weapon against human life: I say that from the most potent poisons he ex- tracts a quintessence with which he infects the very spirit of life, and (as Cesalpino well observes, De Daemonum Inuestigatione, c. 16) so establishes his devil-made disease that human skill is hardly able to find a remedy, since the devil’s poison is too subtle and tenuous, too swift and sure in killing, and reaches to the very marrow of the bones. But those more common mala- dies which are caused solely by some external injury or noxious breath, by means of certain instruments of witch- craft, unguents, signs, buried charms and such things, have no natural power for evil in themselves, but are
* “Franciscus Valesius.”? A Spanish Doc- tor of Physic who flourished towards the end of the sixteenth century. He won a great reputa- tion for his translations of, and commentaries upon, the older medical writers.
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merely symbols in response to which the demon fulfils his pact with a witch. This was pointed out by the same Andrea Cesalpino in Chapter 17 of the work above quoted.
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Examples.
A certain honest woman who had been legally married to one of the household of the Archduke formally deposed the following in the presence of a Notary. In the time of her maidenhood she had been in the ser- vice of one of the citizens, whose wife became afflicted with grievous pains in the head; and a woman came who said she could cure her, and so began certain incantations and rites. And I carefully watched (said this woman) what she did, and saw that, against the nature of water poured into a vase, she caused water to rise in its vessel, to- gether with other ceremonies which there is no need to mention. And con- sidering that the pains in my mistress’s head were not assuaged by these means, I addressed the witch in some indignation with these words: “I do not know what you are doing, but whatever it is, it is witchcraft, and you are doing it for your own profit.” Then the witch at once replied: ““You will know in three days whether I am a witch or not.” And so it proved ; for on the third day when I sat down and took up a spindle, I suddenly felt a terrible pain in my body. First it was inside me, so that it seemed that there was no part of my body in which I did not feel horrible shooting pains; then it seemed to me just as if burning coals were being continually heaped upon my head; thirdly, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet there was no place large enough for a pinprick that was not covered with a rash of white pustules; and so I remained in these pains, crying out and wishing only for death, until the fourth day. At last my mistress’s hus- band told me to go to a certain tavern ;
BK. II. CH. VIII.
and with great difficulty I went, whilst he walked before, until we were in front of the tavern. ‘See!’ he said to me; “there is a loaf of white bread over the tavern door.”’ “I see,” said I. Then he said: ““Take it down, if you possibly can ; for it may do you good.” And I, holding on to the door with one hand as much as I could, got hold of the loaf with the other. “Open it” (said my master) ‘‘ and look carefully at what is inside.”’ Then, when I had broken open the loaf, I found many things inside it, especially some white grains very like the pustules on my body; and I saw also some seeds and herbs such as I could not eat or even look at, with the bones of serpents and other animals. In my astonishment I asked my master what was to be done; and he told me to throw it all into the fire. I did so; and behold! suddenly, not in an hour or even a few minutes, but at the moment when that matter was thrown into the fire, I regained all my former health.
The same author tells in the same place the following story. An honest married woman deposed the following on oath. Behind my house (she said) I have a greenhouse, and my neigh- bour’s garden borders on it. One day I noticed that a passage had been made from my neighbour’s garden to my greenhouse, not without some damage being caused; and as I was standing in the door of my green- house reckoning to myself and _ be- moaning both the passage and the damage, my neighbour suddenly came up and asked if I suspected her. But I was frightened because of her bad reputation, and only answered, “The footprints on the grass are a proof of the damage.” Then she was indig- nant because I had not, as she hoped, accused her with actionable words, and went away murmuring; and though I could hear her words, I could not understand them. After a few days I became very ill with pains in the stomach, and the sharpest twinges shooting from my left side to my right,
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and conversely, as if two swords or knives were thrust through my breast; whence day and night I disturbed all the neighbours with my cries. And when they came from all sides to con- sole me, it happened that a certain clay-worker, who was engaged in an adulterous intrigue with that witch, my neighbour, coming to visit me, took pity on my illness, and after a few words of comfort went away. But the next day he returned in a hurry, and, after consoling me, added: “‘I am go- ing to test whether your illness is due to witchcraft, and if I find that it is, I shall restore your health.’? So he took some molten lead and, while I was lying in bed, poured it into a bowl of water which he placed on my body. And when the lead solidified into a certain image and various shapes, he said: “See! your illness has been caused by witchcraft; and one of the instruments of that witchcraft is hidden under the threshold of your house door. Let us go, then, and remove it, and you will feel better.”’ So my hus- band and he went to remove the charm; and the clay-worker, taking up the threshold, told my husband to put his hand into the hole which then appeared, and take out whatever he found; and he did so. And first he brought out a waxen image about a palm long, perforated all over, and pierced through the sides with two needles, just in the same way that I felt the stabbing pains from side to side; and then little bags containing all sorts of things, such as grains and seeds and bones. And when all these things were burned, I became better, but not en- tirely well. For although the shootings and twinges stopped, and I quite re- gained my appetite for food, yet even now I am by no means fully restored to health. And when we asked her why it was that she had not been complete- ly restored, she answered: There are some other instruments of witchcraft hidden away which I cannot find. And when I asked the man how he knew where the first instruments were hid-
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den, he answered: “I knew this through the love which prompts a friend to tell things to a friend.”
A tale surpassing all wonder is told in his De Naturae diuinis character- ismis, II, 4 by Cornelius Gemma,* who relates that a fifteen-year-old girl of Louvain named Catarina Gualteri was sometime under his charge in the year 1571. She was given by a kinswoman of her own age something to taste, and when she had eaten it she at once showed extraordinary symptoms ofsickness ; for Gemma him- self saw her every day void so many objects of such a size and nature that he would not have believed if it had been told him by anyone else. In the eighth month of her sickness with a great effort she voided from her back passage a live eel, perfectly formed, as thick as a thumb and six feet long, with scales and eyes and tail and everything belonging to an eel. He tells that, three days before it came out, not only the girl herself but also those near her heard the eel utter a sharp thin cry in her belly; and when it was coming out the girl said that she clearly felt that at the first attempt it drew back its head, and then came out with a rush. They killed and disembowelled the eel, and hung it high out of the reach of the animals; but it suddenly vanished. Meanwhile the girl began to vomit an immense quantity of fluid not unlike wine and of an unpleasant taste; and this continued for more than fourteen days, each day’s vomiting weighing twenty-four pounds. Besides this she made water copiously two or three times a day. No tumour or external swelling could be seen in her stomach or anywhere in her body, and the girl
* “Cornelius Gemma.” Dutch physician and astrologer, born at Louvain in 1535, the son of Régnier Gemma (Frisius or Frizon), Professor at the University of Louvain. The chief work of Cornelius Gemma, ‘‘De Naturae diuinis characterismis . . . libri II,’ was pub- lished at Antwerp in 1575.
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ate and drank very sparingly, hardly taking a cup of wine or beer or other liquor ; but her excretion of water was. such that in two weeks she could easily fill two water-butts. After this flood of water she began to vomit a vast number of hairs of about a finger’s length, some longer and some shorter, like those which fall from old dogs; and the quantity of the hairs grew each day so that she could easily have filled many full-sized balls. All this she vomited with much retching and difficulty. After a few days’ interval there followed other vomitings of great balls of hair floating in a purulent sanies, and sometimes of the appear- ance of the dung of pigeons or geese; and in this pus were found bits of wood and tiny pieces of skin, some of the wood being various-sized pieces of living trees, as if they had been broken. off from the trunks; these were of the thickness and breadth of a nail, spongy inside and black with old bark outside. Shortly afterwards her vomit- ing became as black as coal, so that you would have said that it was ink or the excretion of a cuttle fish, with minute pieces of coal in it; and each day she vomited two or three pounds, nearly always accompanied with more hairs than could be put into a walnut, all white and long and stiff. This con- tinued for three days, and then in one single vomit she threw up two pounds of pure blood, as from an opened vein, unmixed with any other matter. After this blood, the black vomiting re- turned, as if the fluid had been dyed with pounded antimony, and each day there were five or six pounds of the fluid; and this prodigy continued for seven solid hours. The application of human and divine remedies brought some relief, during which the hairs were still ejected, but they were fewer and gradually became blacker and shorter every day, growing from auburn to dark and so to jet black, and it seemed that the vomiting broke them into minute particles, such was her virulent spitting ; though at times
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it was more like mud. About the middle of September she vomited larger pieces of skin which seemed to be torn from her stomach, and they had the appearance of a thick fleshy membrane, tough and difficult to tear, like the choroid envelope of a foetus, and were marked with a network of veins, and were sometimes as much as half a palm in length. Immediately after these followed others much thinner but black right through, but still bearing the marks of veins, and in other respects not unlike the allan- toid membrane. Last came mem- branes of a third kind, devoid of vasa, and thinner than any of the others, like the amnion yet differing from it in appearance and material; for though thin, they were remarkably tough, and in some marvellous man- ner larger. The fragments differed in size, but two especially were more than two palms wide and were deeply grooved: these split themselves from top to bottom and took the form of cancellated rhombs. I can com- pare them with nothing better than the slough of a viper, although I had never before seen anything compar- able with them. But this was chiefly remarkable in them, that along the length of them there appeared a deeper groove marked sparsely with transverse marks, as appears in hoarse- ness of the lung. They had a hollow circular cavity within, a little nar- rower in the fastigium of one mem- brane, like the mark of a snake’s head with a mastoid apophysis or a mamil- lary processus. In the end of the other there lurked something abdominal and asymmetrical, not unlike a bifur- cated vertex. All these joined together clearly attained to the length and thickness of an eel, and I think that it was a papillary tubercle through which the eel breathed and, perhaps, drew into itself the needful solid and liquid nutriment.
After she cast up these membranes, there followed a vast quantity of stones, which she brought up always
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in the evening and at a fixed hour with much contortion and nausea. These stones were of the shape which is found in the ruins of old houses, and were solid, angular, and of vari- ous shapes and sizes, some as big as walnuts; and she vomited them not without danger of suffocation. Some- times also they were coated with chalk and joined together, so that they could not be distinguished from stones pulled from a house wall.
Once in my presence she brought up an angular stone as big as a double chestnut, with very great diffi- culty, so that I manifestly saw her vomiting it and heard the sound of it falling into the basin, to the great horror both of my own mind and of those who were standing about. Im- mediately afterwards she brought up, but with less difficulty, a piece of wood as long and thick as a thumb. This was bound right round with a sort of thread. Meanwhile at intervals she still vomited hairs, but fewer and blacker. Then came that which would surpass all belief, for she brought up a hard triangular bone, hollow and spongy inside, such as was clearly a fragment of ox’s leg, and the girl’s father said he had seen such a one the day before in his broth. Without delay — on the following day she vomited a number of bony objects, some sharp and some round, of various shapes and sizes, still mingled with hairs and stones: and last of all, pieces of glass and bronze. Gemma justly supposes that a demon was, with the permission of God, the originator of these prodi- gies, but that he nevertheless employed natural causes in their due order as far as he could.
Sprenger (Malleus Maleficarum, II, Bb I, c. 13) tells of a woman of
abern with whom a certain midwife was very angry because she did not engage her to minister to her at child- birth. This midwife came one night with two other witches where she was lying in bed and said that, out of revenge, she was going to put some-
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thing in her intestines, the pain of which she would feel in six months’ time; and she touched her belly. And it seemed to her that she took out her entrails and put in something which she could not see. After six months were gone, in the words of Sprenger, such a terrible pain came into her belly that she could not help disturbing everybody with her cries day and night. And because, as has been said, she was most devout to the Virgin, the Queen of Mercy, she fasted with bread and water every Saturday, so that she believed that she was de- livered by Her intercession. For one day, when she wanted to perform an action of nature, all those unclean things fell from her body; and she called her husband and her son, and said: “Are those fancies? Did I not say that after half a year the truth would be known? Or who ever saw me eat thorns, bones, and even bits of wood?”’ For there were brambles as long as a palm, as well as a quan- tity of other things.
There is a castle* called St.- Symphorien in the Diocese of Lyons and a few miles from that city, where there lived a man full of faith, a con- scientious entertainer of religious men, and of sober and learned conversation and opinions. This man once dragged an Abbot, almost by force, to his dwelling to see his daughter who was troubled with a wretched affliction: for, instigated by her envious mother- in-law, an evil witch-woman had caused her to sink into a hopeless languor, so that she could not endure the presence or sight of her husband. The girl’s mother, led by womanly affection to believe that Satan would cast out Satan, sought the help of a famous warlock, who came and ex- amined the girl and pronounced that she was bewitched. He then rubbed
* “There is a castle.” This history is given by Laurentius Surtus the hagiologist. ‘‘De pro- batis Sanctorum historiis’’ (Cologne, 1570-77) , Tom. III, 8 May, c. xxii.
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the bark of a tree with a potion of herbs which he gave her to drink, uttering certain enchantments; and with his own teeth bit the poor girl’s arm, a marvellous and strange thing unheard of before. She then recovered from her languor; but kept feeling as it were needles coming from her heart, and was in terrible pain while some unseen power drew these needles out through the bite in her arm, upon which no scar had appeared. A cruel remedy, but one worthy of its author. In this way at various times more than thirty needles were expelled, some with and some without an eye for the thread. The Abbot who, as we have said, came to the house where this was happening, is a most eminent and distinguished monk whose good work in this and other marvellous cases is not unknown; but since he is yet living I have thought fit not to divulge his name. The anxious father showed him his unhappy daughter and with tears explained her miserable case, and as he was speaking his words were proved by the fact: for the girl groaned and said that she felt a needle coming. The needle reached the opening, preceded by the usual flow of blood, and had already begun to show part of itself, when one of the lay brothers waiting upon the Abbot drew it out all bloody, to be kept for many years as evidence of the fact. The Abbot touched the wound and promised that by virtue of faith no more iron would come out of it. And so it was; but the material only was changed, for the malady was not yet conquered. Instead of the iron needles there began to come out little bits of wood, like spits of oak or ash, thicker and rather longer than thorns, but not all of the same length or thickness, any more than the needles had been. Within a year and a few months six- teen of these bits of wood came from the woman. At last came the Rever- end Bishop Peter who was endowed with grace to perform this miracle. He gave orders in the preceding even-
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ing that the woman should be brought to him as he celebrated Mass; and during the Mass the seventeenth piece of wood came from her body. The Chaplain drew it out in the sight of all, and the Bishop confessed and absolved the woman, and gave her the Eucharist, and bade her hence- forth be secure from all extrusion of any matters. In this way she was freed from all spells and sorcery and abode by her husband and gave birth to children, and is said to live to this day testifying to the miracle which she was permitted to experience. Her father’s name was Pierre du Fraxinet, a man well known and honoured by his neighbours, as may be verified by any who may find this story too strange to be believed.
Cesalpino writes as follows, in the De Inuestigatione Daemonum, cap. 17: This year at Pisa I, with many others, saw the following. A woman possessed by demons used frequently, sometimes while she was being exorcised and sometimes after, to cast from her body objects of a size and nature which precluded the possibility of her having eaten them; such as long iron nails, bones, stones, balls of wool, coals, and many other things. And in her bed, where her breast, and especially her heart, lay, were found many balls cunningly formed from palm leaves in various shapes, but mostly in the form of a rose with many layers of delicate petals, some bound round with thread and others stuck together with glue. Other objects were found on her pillow where her head rested.
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