The most he could recall was that one day he had been seized by men, that next he had fallen asleep, and then that he had been cured.

Cured of what?
He did not know.

Of burnings by sulphur and incisions by the iron he remembered nothing.

The Comprachicos deadened the little patient by means of a stupefying powder which was thought to be magical, and suppressed all pain.

This powder has been known from time immemorial in China, and is still employed there in the present day.