weapon-salve

plural weapon-salves · alternative weapon salve

1. historicalA type of ointment formerly applied to a weapon, believed to heal a wound caused by that weapon.

   One of his great enthusiasms was for a "sympathetic" weapon salve, an idea originating in Paracelsus.

   1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 225

   2 more examples

   The supreme example of a magical cure justified by the Neoplatonist belief in occult influences and sympathies was the weapon-salve, around which a fierce controversy raged in the 1630s.

   1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 184

   A century earlier Paracelsus had described the weapon-salve, which was prepared from a number of ingredients including the blood of the injured person.

   2002, Allen G Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, page 246