Wearing eel-skin garters is also more or less practised as a cure for the same complaint.
Putting sulphur in the shoes is also highly commended as a cure for rheumatism. I have known the same thing done as a preventive against an attack of grippe.
Plain or galvanized iron finger rings are also worn for their supposed property to cure the rheumatism.
Another well-to-do business man gravely assured me that a nutmeg, suspended round the neck by a string, was a sure cure for boils “—and no mistake about it—” and strongly urged giving it a trial.
Corns and warts likewise are cured by carrying a horsechestnut on the person. Another way is to rub the wart with a copper coin, throwing the coin away immediately after. The person picking it up transfers the fungus to himself. Still another way is to first stick a pin in the wart, then to go and stick the same pin into an apple tree, though in England they say it must be an ash. The notion that such things were “catching” seems to have suggested, in a way to be easily understood, the theory of disease transference, to common folk. With this view a puppy is sometimes put into the same bed with a sick child, in the belief that the sickness will pass from the child to the puppy, while both are asleep. A case, in which this remedy was tried, came to my knowledge very recently.
To return to the subject of warts, some countryfolk highly recommend making the sign of the cross against the chimney-back with a piece of chalk, asserting that, as soon as the mark is covered with soot, the warts will go away. Others, equally skilled in this sort of cures, contend that if you steal some beans, and secretly bury them in the ground the disagreeable excrescences will leave you. Should all else fail you must then sell your warts or corns to somebody. Who’ll buy? Who’ll buy?
Should you have a decayed tooth extracted, the molar must instantly be thrown into the fire, or you will surely have a cat’s tooth come in its place. To dream of losing your teeth is, by many, considered a sure sign of coming trouble. Jet, powdered and mixed with wine, was once thought to be a sure remedy for the toothache.
Wearing a caul is a sure protection against drowning.
One must not kiss a cat; the doing so will expose one to catch some disease.
Hostlers and stable boys believe that it keeps horses healthy to have a goat about the stable.