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Cure for the Toothache.
—In the village of Drumcondra, about a mile and half on the northern side of Dublin, there is an old churchyard, remarkable as the burying-place of Gandon the architect, Grose the antiquary, and Thomas Furlong the translator of Carolan's Remains. On the borders of this churchyard there is a well of beautiful water, which is resorted to by the folks of the village afflicted with toothache, who, on their way across the graves pick up an old skull, which they carry with them to drink from, the doing of which they assert to be an infallible cure. Others merely resort to the place for the purpose of pulling a tooth from a skull, which they place on or over the hole or stump of the grown tooth, and they affirm that by keeping it there for a certain time the pain ceases altogether. There is a young woman at this instant in the employment of my mother, who has practised these two remedies, and who tells me she knows several others who have done the same.
C. HOEY.
Near Drumcondra, County Dublin.
Medical Use of Pigeons.—
"Spirante columba
Suppositu pedibus, revocantur adima vapores."
"'They apply pigeons to draw the vapours from the head.'"—Dr. Donne's "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions," Works, vol. iii. p. 550. Lond. 1839.
Mr. Alford appends to the above-cited passage the following note: