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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The cleft was kept open, and the child, quite naked, was passed 
head first through the tree nine times. The tree was then closed 
and carefully tied together. If the severed parts reunited, the 
child and the tree recovered together; if the cleft gaped in any 
part, the operation was certain to prove ineffectual." p. 421. 
6. In Gloucestershire : — 
This charm was far from being the exclusive property of the two 
south-western counties, but belonged apparently to the whole of 
England, if not to the British Isles. Mr. John Brace, writing 
from " Hyde, near Stroud, Gloucestershire," in the Athenceum for 
September 5th, 1846 (No. 984, p. 908), says, "One important 
branch of the extensive subject ... of Folk Lore comprises Medi- 
cal Superstitions ; and a curious subdivision of this branch of the 
subject relates to trees used superstitiously with a view to the cure 
of diseases. An instance of this kind of superstition has lately 
occurred in a parish in this neighbourhood, which it may be worth 
while to record. It is an evidence of the almost ineradicable 
power of superstition ; and, also, of the extraordinarily defective 
condition of our popular education upon medical subjects. 
" A poor woman, a native of the parish alluded to, applied a few 
weeks ago to the rector of that parish for permission to pass a sick 
child through one of his ash-trees. The object was, to cure the 
child of the disease ordinarily called the rickets." 
7. As practised in Warwickshire : — 
The following letter appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for 
June 15th, 1804, vol. 74, p. 512 : 
"Mr. Urban:— On Shotley Heath in Silhill parish, Warwick- 
shire, on the left hand side of the road going from Shirley-street 
to Hockley-house (on the high road from Birmingham to Hockley- 
house) and about a quarter of a mile from Shirley-street, there 
stands a young ash tree, close to the cottage of Henry Rowe, whose 
infant son Thomas Rowe was drawn through the trunk or body of 
it, in the year 1791, to cure him of a rupture, the tree being then 
split open for the purpose of passing the child through it. The 
boy is now thirteen years and six months old. I have this day, 
June 10, 1804, seen the ash tree and Thomas Rowe, as wel] as 
his father Henry Rowe, from whom I have received the above 
account; and he superstitiously believes that his son Thomas was 
