Cat-dung, “to be attached to the body with the toe of a horned owl” and “not to be removed until the seventh paroxysm is passed,” was the amulet recommended by Pliny for the cure of the quartan fever.—(Lib. xxviii. c. 66.)
Sextus Placitus, “De Puello et Puella Virgine,” recommends the use of calculi to aid in the expulsion of calculi, either ground into a powder or hung about the patient’s neck as an amulet; in the latter case, he says, the cure is more gradual.
Roman matrons used a small stone found in the excrement of a hind “attached to the body as an amulet,” as “a preventive of abortion.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 77.)
In retarded dentition, there was a bag suspended from the infant’s neck, in which was a powder, made of equal parts of the dung of hares, wolves, and crows.—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 820).
“Wolf’s dung, borne with one, helps the colic.”—(Burton, “Anatomy of Melancholy,” vol. ii. p. 134.)
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 1621, p. 476, has the following passage on this subject: “Amulets I find prescribed; taxed by some, approved by others.”—(Quoted by Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. ii. p. 324, article “Amulets.”)
No explanation can be ventured upon for the following charm, which had a very extended dissemination throughout Europe, and can be traced back to “Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. x. p. 33.
“Many magic writings are simply invocations of the devil.... A woman obtained an amulet to cure sore eyes. She refrained from shedding tears and her eyes recovered. On a zealous friend opening the paper, these words were found: “Der teufel kratze dir die augen aus, und scheisse dir in die löcher,” and, naturally, when the woman saw that it was in this she had trusted, she lost faith, began to weep again, and in due time found her eyes as bad as ever. (“Folk Medicine,” Black, p. 171.) The same charm was also, in other places, written in Latin, in this form: “Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos, impleat foramina stercoribus.” It is quoted by Pettigrew, in ”Medical Superstitions,” p. 102; also by Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 324, article “Characts.”
Translated into English it is thus rendered by Reginald Scot:—