“Blisters on the tongue are caused by telling fibs. When they show no disposition to leave, the following process is adopted. Three small sticks are cut from a tree, each about the length of a finger, and as thick as a pencil; these are inserted in the mouth, and buried in a dung-hill; the next day the operation is repeated, as well as on the third day; after which the three sets of sticks are allowed to remain in the manure, and as they decay the complaint will disappear.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans,” Hoffman, p. 28.)
“The following procedure for the cure of bronchitis is still practised in Berks County. Make a gimlet hole in the door-frame, at the exact height of the patient’s head, into which insert a small tuft of his hair, and close the hole with a peg of wood; then cut off the projecting portion of the peg. As the patient grows in height beyond the peg, so will the disease be outgrown.”—(Idem, p. 28.)
“Gout may be transferred from a man to a tree, thus: Pare the nails of the sufferer’s fingers, and clip some hair from his legs. Bore a hole in an oak, stuff the nails and hair in the hole, stop up the hole again, and smear it with cow’s dung.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 153, quoting Grimm. Bavaria.)
A curious method of relieving and eradicating all kinds of colic by “transplantation” is related and described by Schurig. The excrement voided during one of the paroxysms should be buried in an unfrequented spot. The grass growing on the soil where the ordure had been deposited would be eaten by domestic cattle, which would acquire the disease, relieving the sufferer. “Excrementa tempore paroxysmi reddita sepeliantur in locum a viatorum frequentia separatum. Gramen quod enascitur super terram cui stercora commissa fuerint, bovi vel agno pabuli loco offertur, quod ubi comederit, colica transplantatur ab homine in brutum, et nunquam ipsum reaffliget.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 785.) Other people took the patient’s excrement, dried it in the open air, mixed it with sweet wine, and gave it to the sick man to drink. “Sunt qui illud idem exceptum in ære exsiccant, cum vino edulcorant et patienti propinant.”—(Idem, p. 785.)
Nurses were cautioned not to let the excrement of the babies under their care touch the hot coals or cinders of the fire; they should throw all the excrement in at once, or not at all. If we are to understand that this excrement was to be habitually thrown into the kitchen fire, a most charming idea is conveyed of the Arcadian simplicity of European life several centuries back.
“Hoc loco monendæ quoque sunt nutrices vel aliæ mulierculæ infantulis administrantes ne infantum excrementibus contegat, aut post modum omnia simul in ignem projiciunt. Exinde enim plurima symptomata exoriri solent.”—(Schurig, p. 995.)
The case is cited of a physician suffering from marasmus, or emaciation. “He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was to be kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg he found his distemper to abate.”—(Pettigrew, “Med. Superstitions,” p. 102.)
“Among medical men ... the Galenist of much repute, of whom Boyle writes, was induced, when other means of cure failed, to boil an egg in his own urine. The egg was afterwards buried in an ant-hill, and as the egg wasted the physician found his distemper go and his strength increase. In Staffordshire a correspondent says that to cure jaundice a bladder is often filled with the patient’s urine and placed near the fire; as the water dries up the jaundice goes, and, were it necessary, other instances could be given of this superstition.”—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 56.)
The following “sympathetic” cure is from Steller’s “Kamtchatka” (pp. 362 and 367): When a man is suffering from incontinence of urine, a wreath is made of the soft herb “eheu;” in the centre of this some fish-spawn is placed, and then the sufferer makes his water upon it.—(Translated by Mr. Bunnemeyer.)
Ordure alone or mixed with urine, made into a sausage by being put into a hog’s bladder, and hung up in the chimney, was of “magical use” in the treatment of yellow jaundice. Christian Franz Paullini’s own son was cured by mixing his own ordure with asses’ urine in this manner. The following are some of the extracts from Schurig referred to in this paragraph: “Ab Incantatione introductis doloribus externe impositum sulphur hoc occidentale magni usus esse dicitur.... Alii addunt allium, atque elapsis post impositionem viginti quatuor horis fumo culinari hæc committunt.... Contra ejusmodi dolores a veneficio alliis placent cataplasmata ex stercore maleficiati in vesicam porcinam injecto et in Caminum ad suffumigandum suspenso.... In veneficio arcendo notum est, quod stercus humanum sit magni usus si scilicet parti ex veneficio dolenti applicetur stercus humanum vel solum, vel cum allio, vel asafœtida; sic enim est ut alii qui perpetravit veneficium sapiant omnia stercus humanum et allium, adeo ut necessum habeant solvere veneficium.... Pro icteri cura magica stercus, vel perse, vel cum urina mixtum, vesicæ suillæ indunt atque in camino suspendunt, Christianus Franciscus Paullini cujusdam meminit, qui filii sui icterici stercus cum urina asini commixtum modo tractavit.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 787, 788.)