766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that the girl never suffered afterward. But it is worthy of note that 

 the beggar-wife explained that the efficacy of the charm lay in the 

 death of the poor mutilated toad, which, deprived of its legs, would 

 pine and die, but as it slowly wasted so would the distemper pass 

 away. Here, then, as in the offering of the live cock, was involved 

 the principle of sacrifice a life for a life. 



Another girl in the same village was partly cured of the " evil " 

 in her eyes by applying a sun-dried toad to the back of her neck, 

 whereby blisters were raised. Poor toads are still made to do service 

 in divers manners in Cornwall and Northampton for the cure of nose- 

 bleeding and quinsy ; while " toad-powder," or even a live toad or 

 spider shut up in a box, is still, in some places, accounted as useful a 

 charm against contagion as it was in the days of Sir Kenelm Digby. 

 The medicine known to our ancestors as Pulvis JEthiopicus (a valu- 

 able remedy both for external and internal use in the treatment 

 of small-pox and dropsy) was neither more nor less than powdered 

 toad. 



Frogs are well-nigh as valuable as toads to the sick poor, who are 

 rarely lacking in the primary necessity of faith in the means adopted. 

 Thus, frog's spawn, placed in a stone jar and buried for three months 

 till it turns to water, has been found w T onderfully efficacious in Don- 

 egal, when well rubbed into a rheumatic limb. How much of the 

 credit was due to the rubbing is not recorded. In Aberdeenshire a 

 cure recommended for sore eyes is to lick the eyes of a live frog. 

 The man who has thus been healed has henceforth the power of curing 

 all sore eyes by merely licking them ! In like manner it is said in 

 Ireland that the tongue which has licked a lizard all over will be for 

 ever endued with a marvelous power of healing whatever sore or 

 pain it touches. 



Another Irish remedy is to apply the tongue of a fox to draw 

 a troublesome thorn from the foot ; the tooth of a living fox to 

 be worn as an amulet is also deemed valuable as a cure for an in- 

 flamed leg. The primary difficulty is to catch the fox and extract 

 his tooth ! 



With respect to deep-seated thorns, the application of a cast-off 

 snake-skin is efficacious, not to attract the thorn toward itself, but to 

 expel it from the opposite side of the hand or foot. But, once we 

 touch on the virtues of the mystic snake, we find its reputation just 

 as great in Britain's medicine folk-lore as in Japan, where the great 

 snake-skins held so conspicuous a place in the druggist's shop, or in 

 China, where the skin of a white-spotted snake is valued as the most 

 efficacious remedy for palsy, leprosy, and rheumatism. 



Strange to say, in the old Gaelic legends, there is a certain white 

 snake who receives unbounded reverence as the king of snakes, and 

 another legend tells of a nest containing six brown adders and one 

 pure white one, which latter, if it can be caught and boiled, confers 



