“Les œufs sont partout fatidiques.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 356, art. “Les Kolariens du Bengalou.”)
LIII.
THE USE OF BLADDERS IN MAKING EXCREMENT SAUSAGES.
It was believed to be peculiarly necessary that the urine or ordure of those suffering from epilepsy, yellow jaundice, quartan fevers, etc., should be placed in a pig’s bladder, and hung up in the chimney; in other words, they were made into an excrement sausage.
Traces of the employment of these sausages appear from the most remote times. Galen has a paragraph which reads as if he had some such practice in mind. Speaking of human ordure, he says: “Utitur non modo medicamenti quæ focis imponuntur commiscens, sed iis quoque quæ intro in os sumuntur.” It would seem that he was alluding to mixtures in domestic medicine when some such preparations were placed on the hearths (focis).
For the potency of these excrement sausages in rescuing victims from the clutches of witches, from the yellow jaundice, from fevers, and other troubles we have the assurances of such grave and reputable writers as Schurig, Paullini, Etmuller, Frommann, and others of ages past; while Black certifies to their use in Staffordshire; and Hoffman tells us of customs among the Germans of Pennsylvania which are distinctly and undeniably modifications of those transmitted from the mother-country. Reference to the words of these authorities, as herein quoted, is recommended; among them the following may be found worthy of remark.
“The entrails will be affected with corrosion when hot excrement is placed in a bladder.”—(Frommann, p. 1023.)
Schurig instances a farmer who by hanging up in his chimney the dung of his neighbor’s horses drove them all into a consumption.—(“Chylologia,” p. 815.)
In the Island of Nukahiva the witch wasn’t content with getting the excrement of the victim; it had to be put in a “bag woven in a particular manner,” and buried.—(Krusenstern.)