The text discusses the role of saliva in digestion and its connection to the nature of the blood, implying that spirits reside in saliva. It also describes how infected saliva from rabid dogs or mad humans can cause an intense reaction in a victim's blood, comparing it to a spark in tinder. The passage concludes by explaining why such harmful saliva does not affect the mad person or animal themselves.
Human Limbs.
In Aardenburg, it was established as a refuge for rest. Certainly, one should not think that such spitefulness resides actually in the teeth themselves; rather, we should look for it in the saliva or secretion around the teeth. As medical experts teach us, the saliva in the mouth provides a powerful beginning to digestion, preparing our food for the stomach to transform it. Hence, it is clear that numerous spirits reside in that same saliva, which are undoubtedly tuned to the nature of the blood from which they are derived; whether good or evil.
It happens that in bites from rabid dogs, or madmen (the frenzy is sometimes a short-lived madness), in which the blood becomes violently agitated, the infected saliva from their mouths is pressed into the wounds of the bites, immediately provoking an excessive irritation in the blood of the sufferer, which sometimes erupts like a spark of fire fallen into tinder. Such vigor of the blood is often subdued by immersing the sufferer in cold water. Now one might ask, how is it that such saliva does not harm a mad man or beast itself?
We answer: Since the entire constitution, the blood, and all the spirits of a human or animal who expels such malicious saliva is affected by it, such a constitution can feel no suffering from its own doing. Because our spirit does not judge things it is accustomed to. Thus it happens that neither smell nor sound is noticed when they are brought forth: And