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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
lately through a wood at Spitchwick, near Ashburton, a remark on 
some peculiarity in an ash sapling led to the explanation, from the 
gamekeeper, . . that the tree had been instrumental in the cure of a 
ruptured infant, and he afterwards pointed out four or five others that 
had served the same good purpose. With evidently perfect faith in 
the story, he stated that when a young infant is afflicted with rupture 
a small maiden ash is split for a length of five or six feet down the 
middle as it stands growing in the wood. The split halves being 
forced asunder, the naked infant ... is passed three times in the 
same direction through the opening, and henceforth the defect is 
cured. The tree is then restored to its natural shape, and as it 
thrives so the child thrives. My informant instanced several well- 
known young men of the neighbourhood who had been subjected 
to the process in their babyhood, and had grown up strong and 
healthy. In one case, in which the tree had evidently suffered from 
the experiment, he referred to the deformity and sickly growth of 
the youth who had been passed through it." {Trans. Devon. Assoc., 
viii., 54, 1876.) 
3. As practised at Shaugh, near Plymouth : — 
There is equally good evidence that the observance is not confined 
in Devonshire to the neighbourhood of the Dart. " It may not be 
uninteresting to many of your readers," says a writer in the 
Athencsum, for September 26th, 1846 (No. 997, p. 988), "to learn 
that in the year 1833, I witnessed at Shaugh, on the borders of 
Dartmoor, the actual ceremony of drawing a child through a cleft 
ash tree for the cure of rickets. The tree, which was a young one, 
was not split through its whole length, — a large knife was inserted 
about a foot from the ground, and the tree cut through for a length 
of about three feet. This incision being thus made, two men drew 
the parts forcibly asunder, until there was room enough to draw 
the child through, — which was done by the mother three times. 
This, however, as I remember, was not alone considered effective 
— it was necessary that the child should be washed for three 
successive mornings in the dew from the leaves of the charmed 
tree. . . . H." 
4. As practised at Boldventure, near Plymouth : — 
A writer to the same journal, for December 15th, 1849, says 
(No. 1155, pp. 1272-3), ". . . I had a little brother who was a 
