Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1889-01-18
FAITH IN THE SHAMELESS.
Sick Children Bathed In the viscera of
Newly Killed Animals.

What is known as the slaughter
house cure is one of the newest freaks
of metropolitan life. Its adopts are
persons afflicted with tormenting bod
lily maladies, more especially those of
cutaneous nature. and the form of
cure which they practice may be wit
messed at some of the cattle slaughter
ing places which abound in the neigh
borhood of First avenue and Forty
sixth street. Strange, and what would
be considered repulsive spectacles,
were it not for the motive of them,
are frequently presented in the places
during the hours of butchering.
Mothers are to be seen with young
children, troubled and sick with phys
ical infirmities, engaged in bathing
the suffering ones in the viscera of
freshly killed animals, while they are
yet warm and palpitating with the an
imal heat. The belief prevails that
these dimensions in the carcasses of
animals are efIicacious in restoring
health and strength to crippled, weak
and affected parts of the body, more
particularly to the extremities, like
the hands and feet. How this queer
belief originated those acquainted
with the subject cannot tell, but that
the baths are stranger and more outre
than the mud baths Of the ancients
may be readily understood.
1t is only on pleasant days that the
believers in the slaughter house cure
make their appearance at the abattoirs.
Mothers are to be met with on such
days on their way through Forty sixth
street and the adjacent thoroughfares,
bringing their little ones with them to
the cattle pens to undergo the treat
ment. GIVE us a bath" is the usual
form of request, and the permission is
rarely refused by the butchers. In
some special instances the applicants
are favored with the privilege of bath
ing their young in the carcasses before
they have been dressed and while they
are hanging from the hooks.
The proprietor of one of the slaugh-
ter houses visited by believers in the
cure for the purpose of undergoing
the treatment said that he could not
account for the origin Of the custom.
1t was first heard of subsequent to the
mania for drinking blood, prevalent
here for long time, and which he
thought might have suggested the
present remedy. The notion that those
engaged in the killing and dressing of
cattle are robust and vigorous lot of
men may have had something to do
with the belief.
The heat and vitality of the freshly
killed cattle was no doubt impaired to
those indulging in the singular baths
to some extent and where they
were taken regularly beneficial re
suits, he thought, might be derived
He said that he knew of one case of a
child that had been saved from death
by the agency of the baths, and con-
cluded that there were other cases of
successful cure. Another butcher
said that the baths were not likely to
become popular and that the owners
of the slaughter houses would not like
to see them SO, as too many demands
for the cure operation would interrupt
business. AS for himself, he did not
have much faith in it, Most of those
who partook of the baths were the
children of parents residing in the
vicinity, and who were doubtless at
tracted to the supposed cure by the &C
feasibility of the shambles, and the
further fact that it cost nothing for the
treatment. The idea of the baths
might have started with the butchers
themselves, and very probably did.
Both bullock and sheep carcasses were
used by the believers in the strange
cure, but the preference was for bo-
vines, as they were thought 70 possess
greater health giving qualities.
A medical man who was told of the
cure thought that the belief was a mere
mania. New York Mercury.