STRANGE MEDICINES. 765 



neighboring counties, he is to shut a large black spider in a box and 

 leave it to perish ; while in Flanders he is to imprison one in an empty 

 walnut-shell, and wear it round his neck. Even in sturdy New Eng- 

 land a lingering faith in the superstitions of the old mother-country 

 leads to the manufacture of pills of spider's web as a cure for ague, 

 and Longfellow tells of a popular cure for fever "by wearing a spider 

 hung round one's neck in a nutshell." This was the approved remedy 

 of our British ancestors for fever and ague ; and I am told that in 

 Sussex the prescription of a live spider rolled up in butter is still con- 

 sidered good in cases of obstinate jaundice. 



Many and horrible are the remedies for erysipelas. Thus, at Loch 

 Carron, in Ross-shire, we knew of a case in which the patient was in- 

 structed to cut off one half of the ear of a cat, and let the blood drip 

 on the inflamed surface. 



It appears that the old superstition may even survive in such an 

 atmosphere of strong common sense as that of Pennsylvania, where 

 so recently as the year 1867, a case was reported in which a woman 

 was found to have administered three drops of a black cat's blood to 

 a child as a remedy for croup. Her neighbors objected to her phar- 

 macy, and proved their superior wisdom by publicly accusing her of 

 witchcraft. 



In Cornwall the shedding of blood is not required. The treatment 

 prescribed for the removal of " whelks " or small pimples from the 

 eyelids of children is simply to pass the tail of a black cat nine times 

 over the part affected. 



Of the burial of a living cock on behalf of an epileptic patient, we 

 have had many instances in the north of Scotland in the present cent- 

 ury, but this savors rather of devil-propitiation and sacrifice than of 

 medicine-lore. 



In Devonshire the approved treatment for scrofula at the present 

 day is to dry the hind-leg of a toad and wear it round the neck in a 

 silken bag, or else they cut off that part of the living reptile which 

 answers to the part affected by scrofula, and, having wrapped the 

 fragment in parchment, tie it round the neck of the sufferer. In cases 

 of rheumatism, a " wise man " of Devonshire will burn a toad to ashes, 

 and tie the dust in a bit of silk to be worn round the throat. 



So recently as 1822, one of these quacks traveled through England 

 " in his own gig." Each patient who consulted him was required to 

 bring him a fee of seven shillings and a live toad. He pocketed the 

 shillings and cut the hind-legs off the luckless toads, placing them in 

 small bags, which he solemnly hung round the neck of the sufferer, 

 who was required to wear this unfragrant appendage till the leg was 

 quite decayed ! 



For the same malady the same remedy was in the last century rec- 

 ommended by a beggar-wife to a girl at Gaddesden who had been a 

 sufferer from her infancy. It is stated that the cure was effected, and 



