Horse-dung was another face lotion.—(“A Rich Storehouse or Treasurie for the Diseased,” Ralph Blower, London, 1616, p. 106.)
Goose-dung is in repute in the State of Indiana for removing pimples.—(Mrs. Bergen.)
Mr. Sylvester Baxter says that young women in Massachusetts, at least until very recently, have employed human urine as a wash for the preservation of the complexion.
“Water that stands in the concavity of a patch of cow-dung” is the belief in Walden, Mass., according to Mrs. Bergen, who thus shows a transplantation of the same belief which has lingered in Europe from remote ages.
XLII.
AMULETS AND TALISMANS.
As a connecting link between pharmacy proper and the antidotes to the effects of witchcraft, and at the same time fully deserving of a separate place on its own merits, may be inserted a chapter upon talismans and amulets made of excrementitious materials.
“From the cradle, modern Englishmen are taught to fight an angry battle against superstition, and they treat a talisman or charm with some disdain and contempt. But let us reflect that those playthings tended to quiet and reassure the patient, to calm his temper, and soothe his nerves,—objects, which, if we are not misinformed, the best practitioners of our own day willingly obtain by such means as are left them.
“Whether a wise physician will deprive a humble patient of his roll of magic words or take from his neck the fairy stone, I do not know; but this is certain, that the Christian church of that early day, and the medical science of the empire by no means refused the employment of these arts of healing, these balms of superstitious origin.
“The reader may enjoy his laugh at such devices, but let him remember that dread of death and wakeful anxiety must be hushed by some means, for they are very unfriendly to recovery from disease.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i. p. 11.)