96 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The patient was taken to running water, where seven rushes were picked 

 and were laid across the affected part; the rushes were then thrown 

 into the stream. This was repeated on three consecutive days. " Caia- 

 plasme de chair de vautour avec les vifs" was applied locally to hare- 

 skin disease.*^ Si poter foureure et plumes de Vautour sur L'esiomac 

 luy pent servir en quelque chose ? ^^ 



Procreative disease was, of course, more inviting to quack remedies 

 than any other ailment of any other part of the body. The richest 

 quacks and those that do the most flourishing business, are those char- 

 latans who pretend to cure the sexual illnesses. I shall not discuss the 

 remedies for all genital disorders. Sterility, however, presents very in- 

 teresting points, and I shall just briefly give some of the ancient cus- 

 toms that were common for the treatment of this "deficiency." In all 

 countries, nulliparous women traveled to holy places and prayed in the 

 churches of the holy saints to grant them issue. At Jarrow, in Eng- 

 land, brides sit themselves in the chair of the Venerable Bede. The old 

 English dramatist, Heywood,^^ relates of the traveling to holy shrines of 

 sterile women in order to become fruitful. 



Another miracle eke I shall you say 



Of a woman which that many a day 



Had been wedded, and in all that season 



She had no child, neither daughter nor son, 



Wherefore to St. Modwyn she went on a pilgrimage, 



And offered there a live pig, as is the usage 



Of the wives that in London dwell. 



In Egypt and other semi-civilized countries, the women who desire 

 to become pregnant, pass several times silently under the corpses that 

 hang on the gallows, or else they bathe in the dirtiest puddles where 

 carrions and carcasses of dead animals abound. 

 JuvenaP^ says in one of his satires : 



Steriles moriuntur, et illis 

 Turgida non prodest condita pyxide Lyde. 



Another Latin writer states: 



Credehant antiqui mulierem sterilem concipere posse, si pyxide aratieam 

 inclusam gestit in sinu. 



Sage and salts were the ordinary ingredients of the prescriptions 

 which were given to women in order to cause them to become enceinte. 

 On the other hand. 



Gold dust is taken internally when to prevent offspring is desirable. Shot 

 is swallowed with the same intention, and also scrapings from a rhinoceros horn." 



A little superstition seems to be a universal trait, but it is tlie excess 

 of it which has caused so much harm and misery. 

 *»R. Cotgrave, "Dictionaire," 1611. 

 "P. Bailly, "Questiones Naturelles et Curieuses," 1628. 

 "John Heywood, "A mery play of Johan, Tyb, and Sir Johan," 1533. p. 27. 

 "Juvenal, "Satires," II., 140. 

 " Leared, "Morocco and the Moors," p. 281. 



