1825. 
great and’enlightened kingdom* repose 
all necessary faith in the same fascinat- 
‘ing delusions ; and there is no ancient 
‘woman, in any of our remote villages, 
who professes the customary knowledge 
and superiority of her age, who has not 
a specific charm for hooping-cough, 
ague, teething, convulsions, epilepsy, 
and every other common disease.t 
Every one is acquainted with the effi- 
cacy of the “royal touch” in cases of 
the king’s evil, or scrofula; and 
scarcely a week passes that we do not 
see in our newspapers an advertisement 
for the disposal of “a child’s caul,” 
which has the miraeulous power of 
preserving sailors from all the perils of 
the deep; and which may be occasion- 
ally purchased for the trifling sum of 
twelve or fourteen guineas. 
To many of my readers several of 
these charms must be known; but 
there are others to whom a description 
will be amusing. 
of obtaining a cure for the hooping 
cough is, to inquire of the first person 
who is met upon a piebald horse, what 
is good for it. An acquaintance of the 
late Dr. Lettsom, who once went a 
journey on a horse thus coloured; was 
so frequently interrupted by questions 
about this disease, that he assured the 
doctor it was with great difficulty he 
passed through some villages. He 
generally silenced their importunities 
by recommending a toast in brandy. 
No disease has given rise to a more nu- 
merous and curious catalogue of charms 
than agues.. A common practice is to 
run zine times through a circle formed 
by a briar, that grows naturally in that 
direction. The process is to be repeated 
nine days successively.t <A spider given, 
unknown to the patient, is a favourite 
remedy with some persons; and I have 
myself seen a very decided effect pro- 
duced by the snuff of a candle.§ No- 
* In Wales, especially, and the High- 
lands of Scotland, &c.—Eprr. 
+ And, what may appear extraordinary, 
the charm (i. e. the belief in it) does some- 
times effect the cure. Imagination is often 
the best ally of the doctor, though not un- 
frequently the demon who inflicts or aggra- 
yates the disease. We are not sure that 
the mistaken science of medical men is 
not, sometimes, more mischieyous than the 
do-nothing superstition of the beldame.— 
Epir. 
¢ This is a druidical ceremoriy—nine 
being a mystic number of high antiquity. 
§ This can scarcely be called a legitimate 
Improvement of Medical and Surgical Science. 
A common method> 
503 
thing can be more common than the 
use of charms in teething. These are 
chiefly in the form of beads, or bands ; 
and who does not remember the Ano- 
dyne Necklace of the celebrated Doctor 
Gardiner, which was thus pathetically 
recommended by the learned proprie- 
tor :—“ What mother can forgive her- 
self, who suffers her child to die without 
an anodyne necklace !”” Many charms 
are, also, employed for the cure of the 
tooth-ache; and, among others, that of 
extracting a worm from the diseased 
tooth is a profitable source of decep- 
tion.|| An ingenious female quack rea- 
lized in this city (London), some few 
years ago, a very handsome income by 
imposing upon the public credulity in 
the pretended extraction of this worm. 
This she effected in the following man- 
ner :— With the grub of the silk-worm, 
a number of which she constantly kept,,. 
—she imposed upon her patients, by 
introducing it concealed into their 
mouths, and after certain manual ope- 
rations, exhibiting it to the admiration 
and conviction of the dupe. That she 
sometimes effected a cure I do not 
doubt; for the influence of the imagi- 
nation on the tooth-ache, and on many 
other nervous pains, is familiar to all of 
us.J The Indian jugglers, relying on 
this influence, succeed in curing many 
of their patients, by appearing to pull 
out the disorder, and then exhibiting 
bones or some other substance, which 
they pretend to have extracted from the 
diseased part. 
For cramps a ring is frequently worn 
‘ upon 
charm ; for the beneficial result is evidently 
produced by the ammoniacal salt. in the 
snuff. The dose is as much as will cover 
the surface of a half-crown, mixed with 
some jelly, or any other viscid vehicle. 
|| The opinion that the virus of the tooth- 
ache is a worm is very old. Many of our 
elder dramatists allude to it; and Shak- 
speare, in Much Ado about Nothing, calls it 
‘a humour, or a worm.”—Act iii. Se. 2. 
q The story may appear marvellous, but 
we know a gentleman who absolutely cured 
his tooth-ache by aspeech in apublic society. 
He rose in great agony, and began with 
quoting the line from Pope, ‘“ Who ever 
argued with a raging tooth?’? He soon 
forgot his pain, however, in the heat of his 
argument, and never was troubled with ‘it 
again for several years. Let the patholo- 
gists explain the rationale how they ean: 
we know the fact to be true to the very 
letter. —Epit. 
