“I never had an opportunity of seeing the following deed, but it was many times asserted to me by serious persons: In our province, Brittany, when somebody in the peasantry has a cheek swollen by the effects of toothache, a very good remedy is to apply upon the swollen cheek, as a poultice, freshly expelled cow-dung, and even human dung, just expelled and still smoking, which is considered as much more efficient.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, Cherbourg, France, July 29, 1888.)
“Dans nos pays, on ne connaît pas, contre les piqûres, de guêpes et autres insectes, venimeux, et contre les brûlures caustiques, de l’Urtica Ureus, de meilleur remède que l’application de l’urine.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Bernard, Cannes, France, August, 1888.)
In describing the medicine of the Samoans, Turner says: “On some occasions mud and even the most unmentionable filth was mixed up and taken as an emetic draught.”—(London, 1884, p. 139, “Samoa.”)
“Maw-wallop. A filthy composition, sufficient to provoke vomiting.”—(Grose, “Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“In Fayette County an emetic for croup is made by mixing urine and goose-grease, and administering internally, and also rubbing some of the mixture over the throat and breast.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans,” Hoffman, in “Journal of American Folk-Lore,” Cambridge, Mass., January-March, 1889, p. 28.)
For incised wounds use human urine as a lotion; for lacerated wounds apply human excrement.—(Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben, aus Schwaben, Freiburg, 1861, p. 487.)
“Horse-dung and beer” are mentioned as the remedy used in England and France for the cure of “exceeding faintness.”—(See Black, “Folk-Medicine,” London, 1883, pp. 152, 153, quoting Floyer and De La Pryne.)
Among the many quaint recipes preserved in the Materia Medica of English physicians down almost to our own day we find that pigeon’s dung was used “to make a cataplasm against scrophulous and other like hard tumors; ... for an ointment against baldness; ... for a cataplasm to ripen a plague sore; ... to make a powder against the stone.”—(John Mathews Eaton, “Treatise on Breeding Pigeons,” London, pp. 39, 40, quoting Dr. Salmon.)
Wolf-dung recommended in the treatment of colic.—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 54.)
“A decoction of sheep’s dung and water was used in recent times in Scotland for whooping-cough and in cases of jaundice.”—(Idem, p. 167.)