To cure Epilepsy, take three drops of sow's milk.
To cure Blisters in a cow's mouth, cut the blisters; then slit the upper part of the tail, insert a clove of garlic, and tie a piece of red cloth round the wound.
To cure the Murrain in Cows.—This disease is supposed to be caused by the cow having been stung about the mouth while feeding, in consequence of contact with some of the larger larvæ of the moth (as of the Death's-head Sphynx, &c.), which have a soft fleshy horn on their tails, erroneously believed to be a sting. If a farmer is so lucky as to procure one of these rare larvæ, he is to bore a hole in an ash tree, and plug up the unlucky caterpillar alive in it. The leaves of that ash tree will, from thenceforth, be a specific against the disease.
The universal prevalence of the superstition concerning the ash is extremely curious.
J.G.
Kilkenny.
Death-bed Superstition.—See Guy Mannering, ch. xxvii. and note upon it:—
"The popular idea that the protracted struggle between life and death is painfully prolonged by keeping the door of the apartment shut, was received as certain by the superstitious eld of Scotland."
In my country (West Gloucestershire) they throw open the windows at the moment of death.