Scurvy. (In Magyar "süly.") The scorbutic place is to be rubbed with a piece of rancid bacon, and the following ditty sung:—
"Sü-sü, lentils-sü
Peas-sü,—pumpkin-sü,
Onion-sü,—77 sorts of sü,
I order thee, in the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary to disappear!"
Cataract in the eye. This is cured with a long prayer, commencing I † N † R † I, and, if it has no effect, another (shorter) prayer is mumbled, and the performer breathes upon the eye.
Gangrene is also cured by prayers; a little garlic and broken glass is placed upon the wound.
Another way is to bury three hairs of the patient in the gutter under the eaves, and then to say the Lord's Prayer. When the medicine-man arrives at the words "as in earth," he drops a slice of garlick, this is afterwards buried in some secluded spot. If anybody steps on this place he will be affected by the same disease.
Hydrophobia is cured by a mixture of the following nine ingredients:—
1. A kind of small, vermilion, flat beetle;
2. Some dittany gathered before St. John's Day;
3. Splinters of tree struck by lightning before St. George's Day;
4. Some cantharides;
5. Young buds of ash gathered in early spring;
6. Rue gathered before St. George's Day;
7. "St. Ivan's beetle" (? glow-worm);
8. "Christmas crumb"[100] and eggshell from between two Christmases;
9. On Midsummer Day, at early dawn, the medicine-man walks out barefoot, and the weeds, grasses, flowers, &c. that stick to his sole or toes form ingredient No. 9.
The mixture is to be taken internally.