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 and Miranda instructed by Ariel, visits him. Ariel says, "Anoint the sword which pierced him with this weapon salve, and wrap it close from air." The following is the next scene between Hippolito and Miranda.

Hip. Oh! my wound pains me. Mir. I am come to ease you. [Unwrapping the sword.

Hip. Alas! I feel the cold air come to me. My wound shoots worse than ever. [Miranda 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 no ease?

Hip. Yes, yes; upon the sudden all the pain Is leaving me; Sweet heaven, how I am eased.

Lastly, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Scott alludes to this same superstition in the lines

But she has ta'en the broken lance And washed it from the clotted gore And salved the splinter o'er and o'er.

It would appear from the explanations already given that by washing the gore away she destroyed the communication between the wound and the remedy.

The first allusion to the application of the magnet as a cure for disease is found in the works of Aetius, who wrote in the early part of the sixth century. He mentions that holding a magnet in the hand is said to give relief in gout. He does not profess to have tested this treatment himself. Writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries recommend it strongly for tooth-*ache, headache, convulsions, and nerve disorders. About the end of the seventeenth century magnetic tooth-picks and earpicks were sold. To these were