The Weapon-Salve

The weapon-salve was an ointment believed to heal a wound when it was spread on the weapon that made the wound, not on the wound itself. Chambers notes that in Dryden’s version of The Tempest Ariel saves Hippolito by having the sword anointed and wrapped close from the air, and that believers were not wanting in an age when every gentleman wore a sword. In one comedy of the time a doctor claims the salve will cure at any distance, the hurt man at York and the weapon dressed in London. John Hales of Eton attacked it in 1630 as a Rosicrucian fancy, saying the patient healed because he was told to keep the wound clean and live sparingly, while the salve took the credit.