Hoflman.] d4o [May :;, 



TllANSFEKENCE OF DISEASE, ClIARMS, ETC. 



Although the belief in the transference of disease, both to animate and 

 inanimate objects, is prevalent in almost all parts of the world, there are 

 but few instances referred to above that indicate its survival in Pennsyl- 

 vania. The instances cited pertain to the transference of warts to other 

 persons by means of a piece of bone : the conveyance to the dead, of 

 corns ; the transmission to fish, of whooping cough and slabbering of 

 children, and transferring mumps to hogs, through the intermediary of the 

 trough. 



The passage under a table, of a pleuritic child, although at present 

 stated to "break up the adhesions," may probably be the relic of an an- 

 cient custom in which sulierers from scrofula, hernia, etc., were passed 

 through a cleft tree, or an orifice in rocks, whereby the complaint was 

 lost either by the transmission, or perhaps in the belief of a renewal of 

 life. It was necessary, in most instances, that the body touched the inner 

 surface of these objects, whether tree, or stone, so that the disease was 

 transferred direct. 



A tree observed at Burlington, N. J.,* which had been thus split and 

 the parts rejoined, was believed to have been used for such a purpose, and 

 numerous instances might be cited of the practice in England and on the 

 continent. In Ireland, holes in rocks were resorted to for the same end, 

 and it may be that the stone collars found in Porto Rico — some of which 

 are now in the Smithsonian Institution, and the use of which is thus far un- 

 known f — were used by the aborigines in a similar manner. These rings 

 resemble horse-collars, and are slightly varying, on account of which they 

 arc known as "rights" and "lefts," the orifice being sometimes rather 

 small, but on the whole could still have been used for passing through it 

 an afilicted child. 



Both in France and in England the licking of a wound or sore, by a 

 dog, or the application of a dog's tongue, was firmly believed in as an un- 

 failing cure. This may have originated among the superstitious and had 

 its source in the incident of Lazarus and his aftliction. 



Diseases are claimed to be cured or removed even at a distance from the 

 operator. Such diseases are said to be the effect of charms and spells put 

 upon patients b}'' witches, or the evil conjuration of those gifted with such 

 alleged powers. The disease may then be due to an evil spirit, or demon, 



■ * Notes and Queries, Lond., 6th ser., i, p. 16. 



t These collars have— for want of a better name— been termed sacrificial stones, but if 

 they liad been put to use in the sacrifice or torture of victims, it is scarcely probable that 

 their forms would have boon constructed so as to correspond to what is called " rights " 

 and "lefts" ; under such circumstances, on the other hand, symmetry would more 

 probably liave been an object in their form and outliue. An ancient custom was to pass 

 the sick through the sacred yoni, and it is apparent that the stone collars much resemble 

 that Oriental symbol. 



