Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1869-08-12
6fnfral Sntellisentt.
CURATIVE POWERS OF ANIMALS.
Queer Remedies and Popular Delu

queer Kemedies anu FOpuiar Deiu-
A writer in an English magazine, who
has evidently studied to some purpose in
curious field, writes of certain popular de-
| lusions:
In early times the physicians in all the
countries of Europe were generally church
men their science scarcely ever compre-
| hended more than what could be learned
! respecting the diagnostics and treatment
of disease, from Hippocrates, Galen and
the other ancient writer's. OF anatomy
very little could be accurately known, as
the dissection of the human subject was
not practised; all apatomical demonstra-
| tions were made upon beasts ''Choose an
ape for dissectisn," ran the directions to
student in the early ages, 'ff You have
one; if not, take a bear; and If you have
not bear, take any animal you can get.
| In all probability, neither Aristotle, Galen,
Hippocrates, nor any of the great lumina-
ries, ever dissected the human body, for
| their works show great Ignorance of hu-
man anatomy. The cause for this lay,
| perhaps, in the feelings of the Greeks re-
specting the sacredness of the dead.
| Returning to our own country, we shsll
| find that until comparatively recent pc
Rod the various systems of medicine con-
stituted zone vast farrago of empirical alb
surdities, and were all far remote from
| knowledge" In one of the earliest of
English printed books. We are told that
'swhen one suffereth the cholic the wind
pipe of hare should be hung over him."
and that ''if the head of goat be suspend
ed over those who suffer the scrofula, they
shall be by 1t restored unto health" And
in the ''Gospelles of Distances, printed by
| Wynkyn de Worde, we learn that ''if wo-
man have the smallpox, 1t behoveth that
her husband buy her black lamb of the
same year, and afterwards bind her in the
| skin; and tLen let him make his pilgrim
age and offering to st. Arragond, and for a
| truth she shall heal"
| If we take the prescriptions of Sir Theo-
dore de Mayerne, who was physician to
three of our kings James l., Charles l.,
and Charles live shall be astounded at
reading that this eminent physician admin
istered drugs and other denominations that
would render a motern practitioner liable
| to be tried for manslaughter. PulveriZed
human bones he prescribed in large guam
titles His celebrated gout-powder con-
tanned ''raspirgs of a human skull unbu-
ried" Ills sweetest composition, how
ever, was ''balsam of bats, into which en-
tered adders, bats, sucking whelps, earth
worms, hogs grease, the marrow of q stag,
and the thigh bone of an OK. When the
most eminent physicians grayely wrote
such prescription, the science of medicine,
it must be confessed, has no great mystery.
The college founded by Henry VIII. had
its conclave Of venerable doctors; but the
old women of the villages had almost as
much knowledge rs the professors of the
metropolis. And it is fact that up to a
recent period a large portion of medical
I q k1,o1 r. t. H.
sixteenth, seventeenth, and late down into
the eighteenth century, every lady COM
pounded medicines in her still-room, and
extracted from the same books recipes for
cookery and for physic. Such a book was
published in the year 1714 entitled "a col
lection of above Three Hundred Receipts
in Cookery, Physick, and Surgery"
and purported to written by per-
sons of "Great knowledge and
long experience" Among tho re-
ceipts we find this "Almost Infallible
Drink for Weak Children: Put an ounce of
rhubarb, three hundred live woodlice, &c.,
into six quarts of small ale, and drink,
spring and fall no other drink" Also, "a
Powder for Consumption Take twelve
dozen of the smallest grigs you can get,
wipe them very clean, bake them in a WELL
glazed pan all night, DC. Also "An Ex-
cellent Snail-wat er in CONSUMPTION Take
a peck OF large shell snails, lay them on q
not hearth before the fire let them lie till
they have done kissing and splitting then
wipe them from the froth, and break them
in a mortar have quart of earth-worms,
slit and secured clean," &C., &c.
One William Ellis published a curious
book in 1850, in which we And this charm
for the cure of the kings evil: "a girl at
Gladdesden, having the evil in her feet
from her infancy. at eleven years old lost
one of her toes by it, and was so bad she
could hardly walk. A beggar woman COM
ing to the door, and hearing of it, said
that if they would cut off the hind leg and
fore leg on the contrary side of that, of
toad, and she wear them in q silken bag
about her neck, it would certainly cure
her; but it was to be observed that on the
toad's losing its legs, it was to be turned
loose abroad, and as it pinned, wasted and
| died, the distemper would likewise waste
and die; which happened accordingly, for
the girl as entirely cured by it, never
having ad he evil afterwards"
In various parts of Scotland the follow
ing barl arous expedient is even now had
recourse % for children infected with
worms: a quantity Of the common garden
worm is collected and tied in cloth bag,
and then cruelty submitted to painful
and lingering death by exposure to the in
fuence of slow fire, by which they are
| gradually roasted alive. Their decomposed
remains are then applied, as a salve, to the
stomach of the child.
A child was suffering from thrush, when
its nurse, Yorkshire woman, procuring
a frog, held it for time to the mouth of
the child, that the creature might imbibe
the ailment, and leave its own health in
exchange. The same practitioner
had herself occasional attacks of cramp, in
anticipation of which she kept a supply
of spiders in pill-box, swallowing one
whenever she was threatened with the
suffering. When the whooping cough at
tackled the children of whom she was in
charge, she feasted them on roast hedge
hog, imposing it on them as a tender rab-
bit. She also borrowed a piebald horse
and having had it brought into the yard,
carried each of the afflicted children out in
succession, wrapped in a blanket, and
passed them thrice under the animals
belly. These attempts being unsuccessful,
each child was condemned to wear hairy
caterpiller in bag around its neck.
In Lancashire and some of the adjoining
counties the following practice is prevalent
for curing warts: steal piece of meat from
butchers shop or from his tray, and hav-
ing well rubbed the parts affected with the
purloined meat, bury it under a gateway
or in any secluded place. If this be done
so secretly as TO escape detection, as the
meat decays, SO will the warts disappear.
In order to get rid of a ''sty on the eye, )" it
is customary for the sufferer, on the first
night of the new moon, to procure the tail
of black cat, and after pulling from it one
hair, rub the tip nine times over the pus-
tule. In Cheshire, ride upon bear was
considered an infallible cure for the whoop-
ing cough.
The right fore-foot of hare worn con-
stantly in the pocket is deemed an excel
lent amulet against 1.-THE rheumatic" A
vary common charm resorted to for the
C ire of that painful disorder, the cramp,
consists in wearing about the person the
patella ofa sheep or lamb, popularity known
as the ''cramp bone" 1t is to be worn as
near the skin as possible, and at night it
must be laid under the pillow. In the
counties of Norfolk, Leicester and North
ampton, for whooping cough they give the