Two Physical Treatises: On the Imposture of Healing Wounds by the Weapon Salve and On the Bleeding of Corpses

204. We do not doubt that the patient’s imagination is of great consequence.
205. For humor follows the movement of the spirits.
206. But this is entirely invalidated by the fact that even the ignorant and the skeptical are cured in this way.
207. And beasts, which, as is commonly said, lack reflective action.
208. Yet this imagination is not without reasoning.
209. If it prevented hemorrhage by accident, the opinion of those who feel that it accomplishes this by itself would be overturned.
210. If this is also the case, the force of constricting the vessels, or of withdrawing or thickening the blood, would reach the wound, which we shall teach is impossible.
211. For if it reaches it, it does so either mediately or immediately.
212. Not mediately.
213. For that which is remote does not touch the first thing.
214. But immediate things ought to touch at the extremities at the same time.
215. If it is done mediately, it could perhaps be done outside of nature through demons.
216. Naturally, it can only be transported through a body.
217. For since the body is healed, it is necessary that it be touched by a body.

218. Nor