Year: 1875

Most wonderful is the beautiful SIM
plicity of some remedies-remedies not
to be met with i'm any PharmacOp9ia,
or any doctors book whatever. Only
think that few hard red seeds of one
of the leguminOus plants common here,
worn round the neck, will prevent a
crush of blood to the head," whatever
that terrible expression means. Only
think, too, that little bit of scarlet
cloth round the neck. no matter how


narrow a strip it may be, will keep of
the whOoping-cough. Perhaps the SAN


guineous color of the seeds is sort Of


homeopathic remedy-like curing like ;
but why the cloth cures the whoOping-
cough, and why it must be scarlet, who
can say? Simplest of all cures, now
ever, is small bit of paper, carefully


made in the form of a cross, then wet
and stuck on baby's forehead to take
away the hiccough. This is true ho-
meopathic remedy in another way. 1t
can't hurt you. even if it do you no
good. I'm the Island of Nevis there is
an unfailing cure for warts. They must
be rubbed with a bit of stolen meat.


The peculiarity about this remedy Is
that it does not matter what the meat Is
whether pork or mutton, beef, veal, or


venison, or anything else. 1t is true 1t
must not be fowl or fish, but meat. But
the virtue is in the theft. The meat
must be stolen, or you may rub with II
until YOU rub it all away, and no result


will follow. All West Indians are


familiar with the virtue of wedding
ring for rubbing STYLE" as those
disagreeable little boils on the eyelid


are called. One can understand the
use of the friction or of the heat that is
produced thereby. But the thing is
that the ring must be a wedding-ring.
Not every plain gold ring will do. The
reason probably is that wedding-ring
is something which, once given, can
never be taken back. Its therefore re-
garded as a suitable antidOte, to these
styes or ''cat-bOils," as the Barbadian
negro calls them, for, i'm my small-boy
days, it was firmly believed by my old


nurse, and so taught me, that If you
gave anything away, and then took II
back, you were sure of "cat-boil." In


these cases, one can be ones own doctor
even though you shave fool for your


patient" But there are some horrible
troubles, in which you need the aid OF
an adept. Such, for example, Is the


presence i'm the body of bits of broken


glass, old nails, and such like, which
can be drawn out, rubbed out, squeezed
out, or got out somehow through the
sufferers skin by the man or woman
supposed to possess some mysterious
power. Hard as it may be Of belief, II
is nevertheless true, that not more than
two wears ago an instance occurred in
the chief town Of st. Croix, Of two old
negroes, natives of the island, one of


whom was foolish enough to fetch in
from the country an Antiguan negro
man to rub nails out of his wife's leg.
The Antiguan man was well paid for
the job, and after a great deal of soap
ing he got an immense number of nails
through the old woman's skin. They
dropped from her leg freely through
his hands into basin, an indefinite
number having been, of course, pro-
vided for the occasion by him. Ii he
had not been interrupted by the en-
trance of an unbeliever, in the person
of the old woman's son, who caused
him to make hasty exit through the
window, there is no telling what he
might have drawn out of her, as moth
ing was too hard for him to do or for
his victim to believe. In multitude Of
instances the illness comes from the
presence of some evil spirit. Rarely, Il
ever, do we find among negroes any
such idea as that the spirits Of the de-
parted dead revisit earth with good
/ intent. Joined with the gross mater