CHAP. II. On the Use of Water.

The Most Serene Chief Physician to the Regent Duke of Cimbria Cimbria refers to the region of modern-day Holstein and Schleswig in Germany. The "Chief Physician" (Archiater) likely refers to a specific court official known to the author., our most honored colleague and friend, has composed a work and demonstrated the use of these waters in a special writing. The same man, in a certain disputation held in the year 1671 titled On the Regulation of Perspiration original: "Moderamine Conspirationis." In 17th-century medicine, "conspiratio" referred to the body's internal and external harmony, specifically regarding the "breathing" of the skin through pores., taught that almost all diseases arise from the obstruction of the pores, from which the use of hot springs and baths is likewise evident. Most especially celebrated are the baths prepared from a decoction of sideritis Ironwort or "Syrian Balsam," a plant traditionally used in herbal medicine to heal wounds and, in folk magic, to ward off spells., by which the common women in Franconia believe even bewitched bodies can be liberated.

§. 16. Helmontius Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), a pioneering chemist and physician who bridged the gap between alchemy and modern science. testifies that those afflicted by madness and rabies can be cured with cold water; he proved this through the story of a madman in Belgium who was restored to health by being submerged in cold water.

§. 17. The use of water in Theology must by no means be kept silent, as Sacred Baptism cannot be celebrated without water. For it must not be doubted that a baptism is not true if water is omitted. See Chapter "Non ut apponeres," Section X, regarding Baptism and its effect.

§. 18. Therefore, all other liquids are excluded from this Sacrament—namely meat broth, saliva, lye, or urine—concerning which Albericus de Rosate A 14th-century Italian jurist famous for his legal dictionaries. treats at length in his Dictionary of Law under the entry Baptism. There, among other things, he cites a distinction from Thomas St. Thomas Aquinas, the influential medieval theologian. concerning a two-fold mixing of water; he thinks that only that mixture is prohibited through which the water is changed into another substance. See also Johann Gerhard, Catholic Confessions, Book II, part II, in the appendix to Article 12, complaint 1.

§. 19. We shall say nothing for now of the water which the Roman Catholics mix into the Eucharistic wine—concerning which see the Council of Trent, Session XXII, chapter VII and canon IX and Bellarmine, On the Sacrament of the Eucharist, book IV, chapter X. Nor shall we speak of their blessed or lustral water (Holy Water original: "Weyh-Wasser"), nor of exorcised water, mention of which is made in the final chapter of the Decretals on the Consecration of a Church. See also the cited Dictionary of Albericus de Rosate under the entry Water.

§. 20. A peculiar use of waters is found in Numbers 5, verse 17, where the method is prescribed for preparing "cursed water" from holy water by adding sweepings or dust gathered from the floor of the Sanctuary. This bitter water [is given] to the woman