37 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



land, Maine, comes the notion that pimples may be removed by 

 moistening with saliva. In central Maine I find the belief that 

 ringworm may be " killed " by moistening the finger in the mouth 

 and rubbing around the diseased spot, taking care to move the 

 finger in the same direction in which the sun moves. 



This is only one of many survivals which I have found, in our 

 own time and country, of the old withershins superstition, of 

 which I shall treat more fully in another place. 



In County Kent, England, W. G. Black says, in his Folk 

 Medicine, there is a belief that a wart may be removed by wetting 

 the fore-finger with saliva and rubbing the wart in the same direc- 

 tion as a passing funeral, meantime repeating, "My wart goes 

 with you." In eastern Massachusetts and in central New York 

 I find the notion that warts may be removed by rubbing them 

 with spittle. A working-woman from Boston tells me that if one 

 rubs a corn with spit upon retiring, four nights in succession, the 

 center will come out of the painful callosity. 



We have all seen how involuntarily people moisten a slight 

 burn with saliva. As above suggested, the application of moisture, 

 and consequent evaporation, no doubt afford some relief to the 

 pain of a burn, and if it be on the hand or wrist the quickest and 

 easiest way to moisten the inflamed spot very likely may be to 

 carry it to the mouth ; but if the burn be on the arm, and a pail of 

 water be at hand, or a faucet over a kitchen sink, it certainly can 

 not be to save trouble that the finger is wet with saliva and the 

 latter carried to the burn. And yet the latter process is often re- 

 sorted to even by persons who disclaim any belief in charms or 

 superstitious usages. A Worcestershire charm for a burn, quoted 

 in Black's Folk Medicine, is to keep the burn a secret, spit on the 

 finger, and press it behind the left ear. We frequently see bruises 

 as well as burns treated with saliva. It is almost an instinctive 

 act with many individuals instantly to raise a knuckle that has 

 received a sharp blow to the mouth to moisten it with spittle. 

 Or a mother or nurse often wets her finger with her own saliva 

 and smears with it a bump on a child's head. This suggests an 

 interesting custom found in parts of Japan, of which the Japanese 

 gentleman, above quoted, has told 'me. "When a child hits his 

 head against a hard object, he at once applies his own saliva on 

 the painful spot to prevent a lump from being formed, repeating, 

 ' This is parent's saliva, this is parent's saliva,' thus showing the 

 reverent belief in the efficacy of his parent's saliva." 



The application of saliva to sore or inflamed eyes is in accord- 

 ance with a widely distributed superstition. I have myself known 

 several persons in Massachusetts, of considerable education and 

 great refinement, who faithfully resorted to this popular mode of 

 treatment in slight ailments of the eye. In Woburn, Mass., the 



