88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Strangely visited people, 

 All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, 

 The mere despair of surgery, he cures, 

 Hanging a golden stamp upon their necks, 

 Put on with holy prayers. 



—"Macbeth," Act IV., Scene 3, line 150. 



The cure of Naaman, who seems to have suffered from this disease, 

 by the prophet Elisha (Kings, II., 5) was accomplished by advising the 

 great general to bathe in a certain river. A very delightful cure must 

 have been the one mentioned by Soane. 17 A person suffering from 

 scrofula was to kiss seven virgins, daughters of the same mother, for 

 seven days consecutively. Another remedy, less esthetic than the one 

 just mentioned, was to tie a toad's leg around the part affected. 



The great evils of cholera, black death or plague, had very many 

 superstitious beliefs as the basis for their cure or avoidance. The con- 

 dition of affairs caused by one of these dreaded diseases can be appreci- 

 ated by perusing Daniel Defoe's description of the state of things be- 

 fore and after the fire of London. In Morocco, as a prophylactic pro- 

 cedure, the priests advise the people to avoid sandhills, and to keep 

 close to the walls to avoid the evil spirits. 18 As a charm against cholera, 

 the Japanese hang a bunch of onions or a leaf of kiri, or a rag monkey 

 in front of their house doors. 19 In some parts of Eussia, when the ap- 

 proach of cholera is feared, all the village maidens gather together at 

 night, in the usual toilet of the hour, and walk in procession around 

 their village; one girl walking ahead with an Icon, the rest following 

 with a plow. 20 



For consumption, the white plague, which even now demands a heavy 

 toll of human life annually, the people had very many home remedies, 

 which probably did very little remedying. The specifics that were in 

 vogue were rather empiric, to say the least, and sometimes altogether dis- 

 gusting. To live at a butcher's shop, to suck healthy person's blood, to 

 sleep over a cow-house, to inhale the smoke of a limekiln, to pass through 

 a flock of sheep leaving the fold in the morning, to feed on a large white- 

 shelled snail, to eat muggons or mugwort — all of these were current 

 medicaments in various localities. Children who had tuberculosis were 

 allowed to lie over night at a certain well, named in honor of a certain 

 saint. In order to prevent the spread of this malady in the household, 

 they buried the corpse with the face downward. 



In hectic and consumptive diseases, they pare the nails of the patient, put 

 these parings into a rag cut from his clothes, then wave their hand with the rag 

 thrice around his head, crying ' ' Deas Soil, ' ' after which they bury the rag in 

 some unknown place. 



17 Soane, "New Curiosities of Literature," I., 206. 

 18 Leared, "Morocco." 



19 MacLean, ' ' Collectanea. ' ' 



20 E. Pinkerton, "Eussia." 



