Page:Omniana 2.djvu/93

 pure water, which with only two single drops of the quintessence of milk was turned into true milk, the only medicine for shortness of the breath and affections of the breast."

Presently it is added, that "she honoured particularly the blood of St. Esuperantia, a virgin and martyr, which after a thousand and three hundred years is as liquid as if newly shed.

''Priorato's History of Christina. Engl. Trans, p''. 430.

This passage affords a curious instance of Christina's superstition, and a curious display of the quackeries practised under the sanction of so celebrated and so learned a man as Kircher. What the herb Phœnix may be I know not; its peculiar name and its growing in water seem to show that the trick of the resurrection of plants is not meant.

How this remarkable trick was performed I have never seen explained. It is thus described by Gaffarel, in a book