6. During the 17th century, European physicians would sometimes treat the inanimate weapon responsible for a wound in the hope it would magically heal the injury caused by it.
A form of magical medicine popular during the 17th century in Europe, powder of sympathy was a bizarre and unscientific method of treating patients suffering from weapon-inflicted wounds. First proposed by Rudolf Goclenius, Jr., and later expanded upon by Sir Kenelm Digby, doctors would treat the cause of the wound rather than the injury itself, with the hope that in so doing the object would sympathetically undo the harmful action it had committed. A poultice or salve would be applied jointly to the weapon and wound, in the hope that a connection might be made between the two and heal the injury.
Consisted of the patient’s blood, human fat, as well as iron sulfate, physicians of the day correlated the healing powers of sympathetic medicine to the now-debunked theory of animal magnetism: the belief in an invisible natural force possessed by all lifeforms that could exert physical effects, including healing, upon the world. Unsurprisingly, this practice did not help those suffering from weapon-based wounds at all. Despite retaining no scientific evidence of ever actually working, the clergy condemned the practice as devilry and magic, seeking to outlaw sympathetic medicine in 1631.