CHAPTER I. 



CHARMS WITCHCRAFT INTERNATIONAL 

 VETERINARY CONGRESS. 



DURING the last year we have all heard and read 

 of many valuable precautionary measures that have 

 been made use of with great success against the 

 Cattle Plag'ue, such as hanging- camphor bags or 

 strings of onions round the necks of all healthy ani- 

 mals, painting their noses with tar, &c. ; but I have 

 been much surprised at the ignorance that has been 

 shown of measures that have been made use of in 

 former times for similar purposes. In fact, no men- 

 tion, as far as I have seen, has been made of any- 

 one of them. For instance, there is the word 

 Abracadabra. Serenus Sammonicus tells us that 

 he found the use of this word of the very utmost 

 value in all cases of tertian fever. No doubt Rin- 

 derpest is not tertian fever. Still it is a fever. So 

 Abracadabra ought at least to have been tried. We 

 are told that the word has no influence unless it is 

 written in the following manner, and then either 

 attached to the patient or else fixed up in some 

 immediately contiguous locality : 



Abracadabra 



Bracadabr 



racadab 



acada 



cad 



B 



