Mrs. M.—That’s a sure sign, a sure sign.
The Patient.—And all through the day it’s just the same thing. I’m just in a state of collops the whole time. Niver a moment’s aise the day through, especially in the afternoon. It’s just hingin’ on I am; that’s what it raly is.
After an hour of alternating symptomatic description and sympathetic response, interrupted only by the making and drinking of tea, the wise woman is prepared to utter, and the patient to hear, the words of healing.
“Now, dearie, listen to me, that’s a good woman. It’s Gineral Wakeness that ails ye. I knew it the minute I set fut inside the dure. Ses I to myself, ses I, ‘There’s Gineral Wakeness writ on the mistress’s face; it’s prented on her face like a book,’ ses I, ‘before ever she says a word to me.’ Now listen, dearie, and do what I tell ye. Ye’ll get a bottle o’ sherry wine, and ye’ll take a bate-up egg in milk every day, with a sup o’ sherry in it, at eleven o’clock. And ye’ll fill that pot there with dandelion leaves and roots, and a handful o’ mint on the top o’ it, and ye’ll put as much water on it as’ll cover it, and ye’ll let it sit at the side o’ the fire all day until all the vartue is out o’ it. And ye’ll take a tablespoonful o’ it three times a day, immajintly before your meals. And every day, whin it comes to three o’clock, ye’ll go to your bed and lie down for an hour, and when ye get up ye’ll take a cup o’ tay. Do that now, an’ ye’ll not know yerself whin I come back.”
As Mrs. Moloney’s list of legitimate and proper country diseases was a short one, so was her pharmacopœia a small book. Besides such common remedies as Epsom salts, senna, ginger, and powdered rhubarb, it took account of—
| Lodelum | which is | Laudanum, |
| Hickery pickery | ” | Hiera picra, |
| Gum Go Whackem | ” | Gum guaiacum, |
| Assy Fettidy | ” | Asafoetida, |
as chemist’s stuff fit for her practice, and of various herbs (pronounced yarbs), alterative or curative, such as dandelion, camomile, peppermint, and apple-balm. As she said herself, she made no “saycret” of many of her remedies, but she was wise enough to carry and dispense certain agents; for, to the benefit of the wise woman, these free gifts constituted a claim for the liberal purchase of small wares, and the use of one of these gave a certain cachet to an ailment which, with a prescription of hot milk and pepper, or of ginger tea, would have been sufficiently commonplace. These secret remedies were kept in little bottles, each of which had its own sewed compartment in a large linen pocket hanging at the mistress’s waist, between the gown and the uppermost petticoat. A certain solemnity attached to their production—three, four, or five being invariably drawn and set out on the table, even when, as in most cases, the contents of one only was needed. Mrs. Moloney would contemplate the range, attentively and silently, for a few minutes; lifting one after another, wrinkling her brows the while, and, finally, selecting and uncorking one, while she requested “a clane bottle and a good cork.” The selected drug was generally a crystal; the bottle, by request, was half-filled with hot water, in which, through vigorous shaking, the crystal rapidly disappeared. Handing the bottle to the patient, the instruction would be given to take a tablespoonful immediately after eating. Silly young folks, who had no need of the good woman’s services, were known to say that Mrs. Moloney knew perfectly well what she was going to use, that the consideration was simulated, and that the oft-used crystal was common washing-soda and nothing else. But these flighty children took care not to say such things in the hearing of their mothers, who had been treated for Gineral Wakeness.
Doubtless the prescriptions of Mrs. Moloney lacked precision on the quantitative side. A cure of rheumatism was threepence-worth of “Hickery Pickery in a naggin o’ the best sperrits.” To be well shaken and taken by the teaspoonful, alternative mornings, on a fasting stomach. “Sixpence worth o’ Gum Go Wackem,” also made up in the “best sperrits,” was a remedy supposed to acquire special potency from a prodigious amount of shaking. “Show me how ye’ll shake it,” the medicine-woman would say, and when the patient made a great show of half-a-minute’s shaking, she—it was oftenest she—would be surprised to hear that that was no shaking, and an exhibition of what was good and sufficient shaking would be made by Mrs. Moloney. In the case of her sovran remedy for sore eyes, to be used very sparingly—a pennorth o’ Red Perspitherate,[3] in a tablespoonful of fresh butter—the quantity for an application was always indicated in special and dramatic fashion. She asked, “And how much will ye be puttin’ in your eye, now?—jist show me.” The patient, desiring to avoid a mean or niggardly use of the remedy, would probably indicate on the finger a lump as large as an eye of liberal measurements could be supposed to accommodate. Then the good woman would lean back and sigh. A pin would be withdrawn from some part of her clothing, and held between the thumb and finger so that only the head appeared.
“Do ye see that pin-head?”
The afflicted nods in acquiescence.