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Even the Church-licensed male physicians, who relied upon purgings, bleedings, fumigations, leeches, lancets and toxic chemicals such as mercury were little match for an experienced wise woman's knowledge of herbs.87 As the well-known physician, Paracelsus, asked, ".... does not the old nurse very often beat the doctor?"88 Even Francis Bacon, who demonstrated very little respect for women, thought that "empirics and old women" were "more happy many times in their cures than learned physicians..."89 Physicians often attributed their own incompetence to witchcraft. As Thomas Ady wrote: The reason is ignorantiae pallium maleficium et incantatio—a cloak for a physician's ignorance. When he cannot find the nature of the disease, he saith the party is bewitched.90 When an illness could not be understood, even the highest body of England, the Royal College of Physicians of London, was known to accept the explanation of witchcraft.91 Not surprisingly, churchmen portrayed the healing woman as the most evil of all witches. William Perkins declared, "The most horrible and detestable monster... is the good witch."92 The Church included in its definition of witchcraft anyone with knowledge of herbs for "those who used herbs for cures did so only through a pact with the Devil, either explicit or implicit."93 Medicine had long been associated with herbs and magic. The Greek and Latin words for medicine, "pharmakeia" and "veneficium," meant both "magic" and "drugs."94 Mere possession of herbal oils or ointments became grounds for accusation of witchcraft.95 A person's healing ability easily led to conviction of witchcraft. In 1590 a woman in North Berwick was suspected of witchcraft because she was curing "all such as were troubled or grieved with any kind of sickness or infirmity."96 The ailing