While Magnes is noted today primarily for its arguments against Copernicanism, the work addressed a wide variety of different phenomena, including some that have no relationship to the modern scientific understanding of magnetism. There was a scholarly debate in Kircher's time as to whether 'magnetic' powers (i.e. powers of attraction) could be used to heal wounds. Robert Fludd held that if the weapon used to cause a wound was placed against it, the wound would disappear. Kircher argued that there was no magnetic cure - indeed such a cure would be the work of the devil. While he dismissed the notion of a magnetic cure for wounds, he devoted a chapter of Magnes to tarantism as a cure for a spider bite - an example, he believed, of magnetic forces of attraction inherent in music.