# An Examen of Witches/Chapter 32

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Chapter XXXII.
By what Ills Witches Particularly Afflict People.
Let us now examine by what ills witches afflict mankind particularly. I maintain that they afflict people with all kinds of ills of the stomach and the head and the feet, with cholic, ​paralysis, apoplexy, leprosy, epilepsy, dropsy, strangury, etc. Dan. the 3rd point.And this they do easily with the help of Satan, who secretly causes persons to swallow certain poisons and drugs; or perhaps the witches themselves mix them with their food and drink. Sprenger, II. 1. 1.And according to the composition of the poison it will spread over the whole body or attack only one member; de Subtil.for, says Cardan, there are poisons which do not cause death, but continually attack one of the victims’ members. Mattioli. Pref. to Book 6 of Diosc.Again, according to Theophrastus, the poison may take two, three, or six months to prepare, and the illness of him who is bewitched will continue for a longer or shorter time according to the time taken to collect the ingredients of the drug. Witches very frequently dry up the milk of nurses, apparently by making them swallow a certain powder which they throw in their broth, unless it is Satan himself who plays this trick. Dan ibid. Bodin, Demonom. IV. 5.Jannette Gresson, wife of Jean Liegeard des Granges, who was burned at Dôle some thirty years ago, in this way deprived of her milk, although it was very abundant, Clauda, the widow of the late Etienne Goguel, and Nicole Clauderey of Mossans.
They also cause a man’s virile member to disappear and be concealed, and then to reappear at their own pleasure. This is widely practised in Germany.
Wier, de Praestig. III. 18. Sprenger, II. 1. 7. Can. Si per sortilegias, 33. q. 8.At times also they prevent carnal copulation between a man and a woman by relaxing the nerves and depriving the member of rigidity; at other times they prevent procreation by turning aside or blocking up the seminal ducts so that the semen does not reach the generative cells. And they hold a married couple thus bound for as long as it ​pleases them, sowing ten thousand other seeds of discord between them besides. And this binding spell of impotence is no new thing; for St. Augustine and the Canons speak of it, and, before them, Vergil:
Three strands of divers colours, in three knots Knot them; and say: “Here bind I Venus’ fetters.”
And Ovid: Amor. III. 7.Is not my body languishing with poison? And elsewhere:
Why might not then my sinews be enchanted, And I grow faint as with some spirit haunted?
This practice is to-day more common than ever. For even children meddle with charms for tying the points—a thing which deserves exemplary punishment; for, rightly understood, such charms are of no avail, since it is Satan who is working in such a case, relying merely upon the witch’s consent.
Furthermore, witches cause him whom they have bewitched to void, sometimes from the mouth and sometimes from the bottom parts, needles, hairs, iron tools, stones and papers. There are several examples of this; for I myself have seen an infinite number of such articles, among other things stones and balls and locks of hair and pigs’ bristles. But I will content myself with a single example which I have from a gentleman of this country who may be believed. Some time ago one of his sons, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, voided by the penis five or six paper notes and some peas. The notes were covered with ​strange characters and the peas were wrapped in hair. The boy told his father that his schoolmaster was in the habit of stretching himself upon his body, placing his mouth on the boy’s mouth, which he made him open, and muttering into it I know not what words. It appears from this that the pupil had been bewitched by his master.
Nevertheless the more curious will be in some perplexity as to whether these matters are imaginary or not. For some have maintained that they are not natural articles which appear in such shapes; Wier, de praestig. III. 5. Grilland, de Sortileg. q. 3. num. 28. De Variet. XV. 80.while others have said that Satan brings these things from elsewhere. Cardan writes that all this is a mere glamour and illusion. Yet I would have it known that the peas and the notes of which we have spoken are still in existence, although it is eight years since the thing happened; and this serves to refute the dictum of Paul Grilland, who holds that the matters which come from the bodies of those who are bewitched melt and dissolve in a short time.
I will go further, and say that I believe that these matters most often do really proceed from the bodies of the bewitched, even if they are stones, balls of hair, or other such things. Mattioli, Dioscor. lib. 5. (Prefa.).For if it is true that stones and gravel grow naturally in the bladder and kidneys from heavy and sluggish humours, and in the course of time are baked and hardened by the heat of the body; and if the retention of the urine is a sufficient cause of the growth of the stone; why should we find it strange for a stone to be engendered in the body of a bewitched person through the agency of Satan, seeing that the Evil One can cause not only retention of urine but as many humours and ​fevers of the body as he pleases? And as for the balls of hair, the Devil causes the victim to swallow these hairs separately; and then, since he can insinuate himself into all parts of the body, he makes with them such balls and tresses inside the body.
But with regard to other matters which the body is not capable of receiving, such as knives, iron tools, and nails, I have no doubt that the Devil brings them from elsewhere and mingles them with that which the bewitched person vomits or voids, so skilfully that it appears to us that they come from the person’s body.
These matters are also found on bed mattresses, or elsewhere in some corner of the house, or under the threshold of the door. Some say that these are charms, sortileges, or magic spells, and will not be satisfied until they are found, holding that until then the illness or devil will not leave the bewitched person. But although I would not deny that it is well done to search for such matters, and chiefly to purge the sick man of them, yet I confidently assert that it is superstition to believe that the patient cannot be healed if they are not found. And I prove this by the example of St. Hilarion, who, having a possessed girl in hand, would not allow anyone to remove the blade which a young man had, at the suggestion of Satan, buried under the threshold of a door, although the Devil cried out that he would not depart until this blade was removed; and yet the girl did not fail to be delivered.
I would add here that it is a great sign that the person is bewitched when he thus voids iron tools, stones, hairs and other such matters. So is it also when a person languishes to death. For ​we see that those who are bewitched pine and waste away little by little, remaining in such a state for a long time before they die. Such was the case with Clauda Perrier, Mathieu Andrey and several others, as we have remarked elsewhere. Yet I would not conclude from that that witches do not sometimes cause men to die suddenly; but I speak of what usually happens.
Paul Grilland, de Sortileg. q. 3. nu. 9 & q. 8. nu. 1. Remy, Demonol. I. 4. Binsfeld, 1. 4. q. 8, de Malefic. C.Finally, witches are the more to be feared in that they come by night and find people in their houses or their beds, being guided by their Master, who opens and shuts doors for them so secretly that it may not be guarded against, and for the most part even makes them invisible.