The most curious method of alleviating physical and mental disorders was that termed by various writers: “Cures by Transplantation,” by “Translation,” by “Sympathy,” and by “Magnetic Transference.”

There is a perfect embarrassment of riches on this division of our subject, and the difficulty has been not to select, but to know what to reject.

Etmuller enumerates five different kinds of cures by transplantation: 1. Insemenation, wherein “magnes mumia” (the spirit distilled from mummy flesh) was used to water the rich earth in which certain seed had been planted; but care must be taken in the selection of the plant, some being beneficial, others noxious; 2. Implantatio, where a plant, already growing, or the root only of such a plant is selected, and watered as above described; 3. Impositio, where some of the skin of the diseased member, or some of the patient’s excrement, or anything else intimately connected with him, “aut ejus excrementum aut utrumque,” is inserted between the bark and body of a tree, and the opening then tamped with mud. But in every case bear in mind that if a slow, gradual cure is to be brought about, a slow-growing tree must be selected; but for a speedy recovery, a quick-growing tree; 4. Inoratio, in which daily certain trees or plants, until cure results, are to be watered with the “urina, sudore, fecibus alvi vel lotura membri aut totius corporis;” but it is recommended that each irrigation be covered up with earth, to keep out the air; 5. Inescatio, where “mummy” is given to an animal to eat; the animal will die, the patient recover.

Human ordure was a frequent addition to the “spiritus mumiæ.”

Frommann opens the way to a clearer understanding of the principles upon which these cures depended. He states that not all diseases were thus curable; only those which in themselves were “movable.” Poison could not be so cured, because its lethal action was effected too quickly for the slow-moving remedial agency of transplantation. Injuries to the “vital faculties,” such as “aneurisms of the aorta,” etc., were not transplantable. Worms ditto, although they were able to move of their own will. “Lipothymia” or syncope, was not transferable. All “transplantable” diseases were called “saline” diseases, because, according to the medical theories prevailing in those days, they originated in some defect of the “salts” of the body.—(See Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinatione,” pp. 1017, 1018.)

Among the strongest “magnetic” medicines, according to Paracelsus, was the one “ex stercore humano.”—(See Etmuller, vol. i. p. 69.)

There was another: “Take a sufficient quantity of the ordure of a healthy man, and make it into a poultice with human urine, to which add sweat gathered from the body with a sponge; place this in a clean place in the shade until it dries, and when needed for use, moisten with human blood.” “Recipe copiosum stercus hominis sani, et hoc cum urina ejusdem misce, redige in consistentiam pultis, adde quantum habere potes sudoris ex hominibus sanis a linteo aut spongia collecti, ponantur simul in loco mundo in umbra donec siccentur, hinc adde sanguinem recentem, misce, sicca, et ad usum reserva.”

Etmuller also mentions a “sympathetic” cure for quartan ague, in which the hair of the patient was to be mixed with food and thrown to birds, which, swallowing the food, took away the fever.

Another method was to take the clippings of the toe and finger nails of the sick person, place them in an egg and throw them to the birds; others again wrap them up in wax and early in the morning, before the rising of the sun, affix the parcel to the door of a neighbor’s house, or else tie it to the back of a living crab, and throw the crab back into the stream: “Sunt cui ad curandam febrem segmenta e manibus et pedibus ovo includunt, avibusque devoranda objiciunt; alii eadem ceræ involvunt, matutinoque tempore ante solis ortum januæ affigunt, aliii dorso cancri vivi alligant, cancrumque fluenti committunt.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 265.)

The first excrement of a man sick with dysentery was mixed with salt as a “magnetic” cure; to this, some people added the powder of eel-skins (Frommann, “Tractatus,” p. 1012, et seq.). Yellow jaundice patients urinated upon clean linen sheets; if they succeeded in dyeing them yellow they would recover soon; if not, not (p. 1012); roots wet with the patient’s urine were burned as a cure for the yellow jaundice (p. 1013); all the clothing of an epileptic patient was burned, and the ashes thrown in a stream, down-stream (p. 1013); especially was this the case if any of it had been defiled by alvine dejections voided in one of the paroxysms; and the same care was taken to burn this excrement (p. 1013). (Note that epilepsy was always regarded as the sacred disease; here we have a suggestion of human sacrifice.)

The method of curing by digging up the ground, depositing some plant and enriching the surrounding soil with the patient’s egestæ is given by Frommann (p. 1016); but the trees or plants to be selected for this purpose were to be those of forests or those which bore edible fruits, “ut fraxinus, quercus, betula, tilia, fagus, alnus,” etc. (Ash, oak, birch, linden, beech, alder, etc.) The animals had to be such as did not eat human flesh, as “canes, feles, equi, lupi, vulpes;” others could be used on occasion, but the results were not so sure (idem, p. 1017). There were two general methods: one, in which the “sanguis, pili, excrementa” of the patient himself were offered; the other, in which crabs, meat, eggs, lard, apples, and other things, were rubbed to the affected parts and then offered (idem.)

Beckherius gives the recipe for effecting a “sympathetic cure” of fever by clipping the finger and toe-nails of the patient and tying these clippings in a rag to the door of a neighbor’s house. “Si resegmine unguium e manibus et pedibus deprompta, cera involvantur, matutininoque tempore ante solis exortum alienæ januæ affiguntur.” And wicked people were in the habit of preparing a draught composed of equal parts of their dirty finger-nails and cantharides, and whoever drank that in his liquor fell into a condition of atrophy (Med. mic. pp. 15, 16). When the patient’s own hair was used in these cures, it was placed in an egg and thrown to chickens.—(Idem, p. 8.)

Frommann speaks of enclosing fragments of the patient’s nails and clippings of his hair in knots and throwing these in the road to be untied by some curious person who would catch the disease.—(“Tract. de Fascinatione,” p. 1003.)

The blood, urine, or excrement of the patient was to be placed in an egg-shell and fed to barn-yard fowl.—(Idem.)

“Id quod alio modo per urinam ægri quoque fieri valet; qua ratione cum sanguine, urina, excrementis, ægrotantis multæ sympatheticæ curæ fieri possunt;” and to this class belong such remedies as cutting an apple or a piece of bacon in half, then hanging the piece up in the chimney to melt or rot; as fast as this was effected, the disease disappeared. Speaking of transplantation, he says: “Prioris exemplum est dum applicato stercore humano ad certam aliquam partem transplantatur eo ipso morbo in plantam cujus semen in terram hoc stercore mistam inferitur.” The first example is where the ordure of the patient is applied to a certain plant, and thus transfers the disease from the patient to the plant.—(Etmuller, “Opera Omnia,” vol. i. p. 69, Lyons, 1696.)

Etmuller teaches that clippings of the toe and finger nails tied to the back of a living crab, which was then to be thrown into a stream by a man who would perform the duty and return home without speaking would effect cures; similarly, for the alleviation of gout, he recommends that these clippings be buried in a hole made in the bark of an oak which should then be closed with a wedge: “Abscinduntur ungues manuum et pedum, alligantur dorso cancri viventis, et cancer istis unguibus oneratus, immittitur in flumen retrofaciem redeundo sine loquela, donec in domum facta fuerit reversio. Instituuntur qq. transplantationes pro viribus recuperandis per ungues. Sic in podagræ.... R.; Ungues pedis, atque immittuntur in foramen excavatum in quercum et super foramen ponunt cuneum ex quo subito fit, ut remittat dolor ac desinat Podagra” (vol. ii. p. 270.)

Etmuller mentions the cure by tying the fragments of finger and toe nails to a crab, in another place in his works. For the recovery of impaired strength, these clippings should be buried in the bark of a cherry-tree, which should then be closed with ordure: “Ad recuperandos vires abscissos ungues et capillos cerasi radici incisæ imponunt, vulnusque fimo co-operiunt.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 265.)

“Denique si quid aliud singulare est si quis accipiat ovum recens, hoc coquat cum urina propria ad assumptionem medietatis, quo facto urina superstes projiciatur in flumen secundum ejusdem cursum, ovum vel ita coctum leviter apertur immittatur in acervum formicarum. Unde quando formicæ assumpserunt ovum solutem erit fascinum” (idem, vol. i. p. 462). “Finally, there is this singular method of taking a fresh egg and putting it in some of the patient’s own urine, which is boiled down one half; the supernatant urine is then to be thrown into a stream (down current) and the egg itself buried in an ant-heap; as fast as the ants consume the egg, the effects of the witchcraft vanish.”

Again, for the cure of gout, toe and finger nails were to be cut and placed in an aperture in the bark of an oak-tree: “Vel dum ungues pedum abscissi et in quercum terebratam inclusi, hominem liberum reddunt a podagra.”—(Idem, p. 69, vol. i.)

Urine was of great use in curing people bitten by serpents. “Per urinam solent fieri curationes magico-magneticæ morborum, si scillicet lardum vel potius caro porcina coquatur ter in urina ægri et caro ista incoctionis urinæ postmodum propinetur cani vel porco devoranda, sic enim sit, ut quam plurimi morbi curentur per transplantationem in animalia quæ devorant carnem et urinam.”—(Etmuller, p. 271.)

Hog-lard or a lardy hog-skin, rubbed on warts and then suspended in the chimney or buried in horse-dung, caused the warts to disappear as fast as it decayed. “Suspendatur in camino furni, vel in fimo equino sepeliatur.... Sicut exsiccatur in fumo, vel putrescit in fimo lardum ita exsiccetur et putrescat verruca.” (Idem.) Half a dozen methods of employing hog-dung are given.

Frommann quotes Ratray as saying from his own observation that there was a “sympathy” between the patient’s urine when enclosed in a glass vial and the condition of the patient himself,—a sort of “barometrical” sympathy, as we would term it. At an earlier period of culture the urine would have been placed in the horn of a goat, or in the bladder of a hog.

The methods of effecting these cures by placing the patient’s urine in an ants’ nest, in any manner, are all given by Johannes Christianus Frommann (“Tract. de Fascinat.,” pp. 1004 et seq.); also the method by boiling an egg in the urine and placing the egg in the nest of ants (p. 1005); also the method of making bread with the patient’s urine, and giving the bread to a dog to eat (p. 1005). In Italy there was a variant of this custom, consisting in giving bread made with the urine of a male patient to a male dog, and that made with the urine of a sick woman to a bitch (idem). Yellow jaundice was cured by boiling a piece of meat in the patient’s urine and giving said meat to a dog (idem); for the cure of rupture the patient should soak some barley in his urine, and then bury the barley in the bark of a tree (p. 1007). Another mode of cure by transplantation was for the patient to urinate in a vial of glass, stop it up with a linen rag or a paper wad, and bury it in the earth (p. 1010). For the cure of yellow jaundice, the patient dug a hole in the ground and urinated therein before sunrise (pp. 1010, 1011); for the cure of dysentery the patient deposited his excrement on a piece of ash and left it in a hole (p. 1011); fever patients threw their excrement in a stream (idem). Other modes were to make a mixture of the urine of the sick man, mixed with ashes, let the mass dry in the sun, and then put it by the embers of the kitchen fire to bake (p. 1012); the ordure of a man sick from “incantation” was applied to the place of the spell, and then hung up (enclosed in a hog’s bladder) for three days in the smoke of the chimney (idem).

In his long and most interesting chapter upon the cure of diseases by the use of human ordure, “magically or sympathetically,” Schurig relates many quaint and curious methods of employment of the alvine dejections of those supposed to be almost in articulo mortis. For example, the ordure of the patient was taken, placed in the hollow of a dead man’s bone, which was then thrown into boiling water. This remedy, if we can trust Schurig, seems to have been of the highest efficacy. Another mode was to mix the ordure with the lees of wine and the pounce of cherries, and let the mass ferment together; or the ordure was collected and thrown into running water.—(See Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 783, 784. The whole chapter “De Stercoris Humani Usu Magico seu Sympathetico,” No. xiii. should be read.)

Goat-urine was applied to sore eyes; but a more certain cure in grave cases was additionally effected by hanging some of it in a goat’s horn for twenty days. “Si cum cornu capræ suspenditur diebus viginti.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Med. ex Animal.,” article “De Capro.”)

Beckherius has a “sympathetic” cure for the yellow jaundice. Make a poultice of horse-dung and the patient’s own urine, and hang it up in the chimney. “Fimum equinum cum urina ægri sic misce, ut pultis referat consistentiam, hæc linteolo excipe, et in camino suspende ut fumo semper sunt exposita.” (“Med. Microcos.,” p. 65.) Another was to hang the urine of the patient in a bladder in the chimney; as the urine evaporated the patient was to recover. “Propriam urinam vesica suilla excerpisse et hanc in fumo exposuisse seque observasse ad exsiccationem. Urina in vesica ipsum quoque icteritiam evanuisse.” (Idem, p. 65.) Another cure of yellow jaundice was a dose, morning and evening, of a mixture of human urine and horse-radish. (Idem, p. 66.) There was still another “sympathetic” cure: the patient urinated in a vessel, which was allowed to evaporate by the fire, and this was continued for nine days.—(Idem, p. 66.)

For consumption Beckherius gives a “sympathetic” cure (already noted from other sources) of boiling an egg in the patient’s urine until it hardens, and then burying it in an ant-hill. (Idem, p. 75.) The same cure was employed in fevers. (Idem.)

A pinch of salt, the size of a big bean, was wrapped in a linen rag, and dipped in the urine of the patient for a whole day; then heated in the fire until it became reddish in color; some of this was sprinkled on bread, and the patient rubbed with it morning and evening.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,” pp. 75, 76.)

A fresh egg was boiled in the sick person’s urine, and then thrown to the fishes. “Recens ovum in urina ægri quod in piscinam ubi pisces sunt conjiciatur, et momento febrem cessare dicunt.”—(Idem, p. 78.)

Still another was to make a cake out of flour moistened with the urine of the sick; throw this to the fishes. The fishes who ate it would take the disease, and the patient recover. “Subige farinam cum urina ægri ad formam placentulæ; coque hæc in forno, instar panis objice piscibus, ut ab iis devoretur; abit febris, maxime quartana.”—(Idem.)

Frommann devotes a long chapter to cures by “transplantation.” He cites from Pliny the method of curing a bad cough by spitting into the mouth of a toad (tree-toad; see notes already taken), and also gives another in which the urine of the patient made into a dough with flour, was given to a dog or hog.—(“Tract. de Fascinat.” p. 1002.)

Frommann believed with Von Helmont that there was nothing superstitious about such cures, because there were no rites and no incantations used. (Idem, p. 1033.) But later on, he mentions having heard a woman (who was trying one of these cures by rolling some of her son’s hair in wax and burying the wax ball in an incision in an apple-tree) recite certain words, which she declined to repeat for him when asked; hence he was in some doubt about her particular case (p. 1034). He quotes the English Count of Digby as stating that he knew of a nurse who carelessly allowed some of a baby’s excrement to be burned up in a fire; the result was the child suffered terribly from excoriation of the fundament (p. 1038). The way in which a cure was effected in this case was the “sympathetic” one of placing the baby’s excrements for three days in a basin filled with cold water, and exposing in a cold place (p. 1039).

Dropsy was cured by hanging the patient’s urine (enclosed in a pig’s bladder) up in a chimney, and neglecting all other remedies. “Urinam ejus recentem vesica suilla conclusam in camino suspendi, curavi.” (Idem, p. 1047.) A young virgin was cured of a tertian fever by giving to a hen bread made with the urine voided during the paroxysms. The girl recovered; the hen died. “Virginis cujusdam febre intermittente tertiana laborantis urinam calidam in paroxysmo redditam gallinæ familicæ cum pane mistam exhiberi curavi” (p. 1047).

See also notes from Samuel Augustus Flemming, under “Perspiration.”

Dr. Joseph Lanzoni did not believe that any good results followed the suspension above the earth, in a sow’s bladder, of human urine in cases of suppression of urine, as was often to be noticed among Jews and some of the religious orders. “Urinæ suppressionem minime referare vesicam suis suspensam, quæ non tetigit terram, quod nonnulli volunt, observavi in quodam Religioso et Hebræo.”—(“Phemer. Physic-Medic.,” Leipsig, 1694, vol. i. p. 49.)

Paullini taught that fevers of all kinds could be cured by pouring the patient’s urine into a fish-pond. “Such of the fish as drink of that water,” he says, “will receive the fever, which will leave the sick man.”

For the “sympathetic” cure of epilepsy, all the clothing worn by the patient during the paroxysm, even his shoes, were to be carefully burned, and the ashes cast into flowing water. More than this; if, during the attack, the patient had defecated, the ordure was collected, and with everything touched by it, burned up with the same care. “Hominis epilepticum insultum primum patientis sive junior sit, sive senior indumenta omnia et vestes indusium, calcei, tibialis, et similia sub dio comburantur, et in cinerem redigantur; cinis vero in aquam fluvialem secundum flumen projiciatur. Si autem jam ante homo epilepsia laboravit, ad alvi excrementa in ipso paroxysmo reddita attendatur; quæ si adest res commaculata cum ipsis excrementis modo jam dicto comburatur.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 1013, quoting Frommann.)

Schurig gives the recipe of Johannes Philippus ab Hertodt for the preparation of a “sympathetic” powder, which serves to inform us as to the incoherent ideas of the practitioners of a couple of centuries ago. Freely translated, it reads, “Take of a healthy human mummy, moistened with a little urine; let it be dried in a place exposed to an east wind, but not to the sun, until it shall be reduced to powder; this is to be mixed with an equal weight of cream of tartar, and the ‘sympathetic powder of vitriol,’ prepared according to formula, in the dog-days; or of the salt of Hungarian vitriol, heated to whiteness in a furnace.” A pinch of this sympathetic powder should be sprinkled upon the feces of the sick person, or upon a cloth dipped in his urine, and then preserved in a cool place. Its efficacy was vouched for in the highest terms: “Effective curat omnia vulnera, ulcera, febres petechiales, et urina fabulum, periculosissimas hæmorrhagias puerperarum, arthriditem quamcunque, podagram et illam vagam dictam, pulmonis apostemata, hæmorrhoides nimias, narium fluxus immodicos, capitis dolores, catarrhos, fluxos albos mulierum, menstrua copiosa, morsus canis rabidi, vel alterium cujuscunque animalis, item mammas ulceratas.”—(Schurig, pp. 775, 776.)

Schurig adds a number of these cures for dysentery, such as placing the dejecta in the retort used for the distillation of vitriol, ... sprinkling such dejecta with salt, or with vitriol, or mixing them with hot ashes and live coals; preferably, the excrement to be thus employed should be the first ejected having a bloody tinge.

“The various modes of application of these remedies are too long for insertion here, but are valuable to the student as showing how deep-seated was the belief in the occult properties of the excreta themselves.”—(“Chylologia,” pp. 785, 786.)

The following is an old French “sympathetic” recipe for the cure of all kinds of colic: “Pour la colique ce sera ici la recette d’un vilain remède, mais pourtant sympathique en ceux qui sont tourmentés de la colique, car s’ils mettent sous la selle percée bien fermée de la fiente de vache fraichement recueillie, et qu’ils pissent et déchargent les excréments de leur ventre dessus, par sympathie sans difficulté ils auront du soulagement.”—(Lazarus Neyssonier, quoted by Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 784, 785.)

For the “sympathetic” cure of hernia, the root of the herb “wall-wort” was smeared with the ordure of the patient, and then buried in the ground. “Radicem Symphti Oleto Proprio delibutam et in terram defossam.”—(Idem, p. 787.)

To stop hemorrhage “sympathetically,” whether from wounds or other injuries, some of the flowing blood was taken, and mixed with the ordure of the patient, and the mixture then exposed in a jar to the action of the air. “Contra hæmorrhagias, sive in læsonibus et vulneribus, ut sanguis sistatur, misce sanguinem ex sanguine profluentem cum proprio stercore et in olla ad desiccandum æri libero expone.”—(Idem, p. 787.)

A patient suffering from yellow jaundice should urinate upon horse-dung while warm. This same remedy seems to have been in vogue in helping women in the expulsion of the placenta. One of the prescriptions given by Schurig states that the horse-dung must be from an animal that was not tired at the time of the evacuation,—“non defatigati.”—(Idem, p. 812 et seq.)

A “sympathetic” cure by the use of the dung of horses seems to be implied in the case of infants’ small-pox, where we find it suspended in beer; “pendatur in cerevisiam ... propterea ne fauces affligantur a variolis quod alias solet esse casus periculosissimus.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 264.)

“There is no doubt that the practice was at one time very general, but it would now be a waste of time to go into particulars respecting the various compositions of the sympathetical curers; the manner in which their vitriol was to be prepared by exposure for three hundred and sixty-five days to the sun, the unguents of human fat and blood, mummy, moss of dead man’s skull, bull’s blood and fat, and other disgusting ingredients.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, 1844, p. 206.)

For ague, “let the urine of the sick body, made early in the morning, be softly heated nine daies continually untill all be consumed into vapour.”—(Reginald Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 196.)

In Great Britain and Ireland, “ague in a boy is cured by a cake made of barley-meal and his urine, and given to a dog to eat; the dog, in the case cited, had a shaking fit, and the boy was cured.” (“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 35. In a footnote there is added, “Pettigrew, ‘Superstitions connected with the practice of Medicine and Surgery,’ p. 77.”) Madame de Scudery mentions a similar cure for fever in a letter of date 20th of October, 1677, to the Comte de Bussy. Speaking of an abbé of fame, “On dit qu’il ne fait que prendre pour toutes les fièvres de l’urine des malades dans laquelle il fait durcir un œuf hors de sa coque, après quoi il le donne à manger à un chien qui prend en même temps la fièvre du malade qui par ce moien en guérit. C’est une question de fait que je n’ay pas éprouvée.”—(“Notes and Queries,” 5th series, vol. viii. p. 126.)

The following are given as cures by “transplantation.” “Seven or nine—it must be an odd number—cakes, made of the newly emitted urine of the patient, with the ashes of ash wood, and buried for some days in a dunghill, will, according to Paracelsus, cure the yellow jaundice.” In the journal of Dr. Edward Browne, transmitted to his father, Sir Thomas Browne, we read of “a magical cure for the jaundice: Burn wood under a laden vessel filled with water; take the ashes of that wood, and boyle it with the patient’s urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyld ashes upon a board in a rank, and upon every heap lay nine spears of crocus.”—(“Medical Superstitions,” Pettigrew, Philadelphia, Penn., 1844, p. 103.)

We are likewise informed of “the cure of jaundice by the burying in a dunghill a cake made of ashes and the patient’s urine. Ague in a boy was cured by a similar cake made of barley-meal and his urine, and given to a dog to eat; the dog had a shaking fit, and the boy was cured.”

“Boys were cured of warts by taking an elder-stick and cutting as many notches in it as there were warts, and then rubbing it upon the warts, and burying it in a dunghill.”—(Idem, p. 104.)

“Blisters on the tongue are caused by telling fibs. When they show no disposition to leave, the following process is adopted. Three small sticks are cut from a tree, each about the length of a finger, and as thick as a pencil; these are inserted in the mouth, and buried in a dung-hill; the next day the operation is repeated, as well as on the third day; after which the three sets of sticks are allowed to remain in the manure, and as they decay the complaint will disappear.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans,” Hoffman, p. 28.)

“The following procedure for the cure of bronchitis is still practised in Berks County. Make a gimlet hole in the door-frame, at the exact height of the patient’s head, into which insert a small tuft of his hair, and close the hole with a peg of wood; then cut off the projecting portion of the peg. As the patient grows in height beyond the peg, so will the disease be outgrown.”—(Idem, p. 28.)

“Gout may be transferred from a man to a tree, thus: Pare the nails of the sufferer’s fingers, and clip some hair from his legs. Bore a hole in an oak, stuff the nails and hair in the hole, stop up the hole again, and smear it with cow’s dung.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 153, quoting Grimm. Bavaria.)

A curious method of relieving and eradicating all kinds of colic by “transplantation” is related and described by Schurig. The excrement voided during one of the paroxysms should be buried in an unfrequented spot. The grass growing on the soil where the ordure had been deposited would be eaten by domestic cattle, which would acquire the disease, relieving the sufferer. “Excrementa tempore paroxysmi reddita sepeliantur in locum a viatorum frequentia separatum. Gramen quod enascitur super terram cui stercora commissa fuerint, bovi vel agno pabuli loco offertur, quod ubi comederit, colica transplantatur ab homine in brutum, et nunquam ipsum reaffliget.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” p. 785.) Other people took the patient’s excrement, dried it in the open air, mixed it with sweet wine, and gave it to the sick man to drink. “Sunt qui illud idem exceptum in ære exsiccant, cum vino edulcorant et patienti propinant.”—(Idem, p. 785.)

Nurses were cautioned not to let the excrement of the babies under their care touch the hot coals or cinders of the fire; they should throw all the excrement in at once, or not at all. If we are to understand that this excrement was to be habitually thrown into the kitchen fire, a most charming idea is conveyed of the Arcadian simplicity of European life several centuries back.

“Hoc loco monendæ quoque sunt nutrices vel aliæ mulierculæ infantulis administrantes ne infantum excrementibus contegat, aut post modum omnia simul in ignem projiciunt. Exinde enim plurima symptomata exoriri solent.”—(Schurig, p. 995.)

The case is cited of a physician suffering from marasmus, or emaciation. “He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was to be kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg he found his distemper to abate.”—(Pettigrew, “Med. Superstitions,” p. 102.)

“Among medical men ... the Galenist of much repute, of whom Boyle writes, was induced, when other means of cure failed, to boil an egg in his own urine. The egg was afterwards buried in an ant-hill, and as the egg wasted the physician found his distemper go and his strength increase. In Staffordshire a correspondent says that to cure jaundice a bladder is often filled with the patient’s urine and placed near the fire; as the water dries up the jaundice goes, and, were it necessary, other instances could be given of this superstition.”—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 56.)

The following “sympathetic” cure is from Steller’s “Kamtchatka” (pp. 362 and 367): When a man is suffering from incontinence of urine, a wreath is made of the soft herb “eheu;” in the centre of this some fish-spawn is placed, and then the sufferer makes his water upon it.—(Translated by Mr. Bunnemeyer.)

Ordure alone or mixed with urine, made into a sausage by being put into a hog’s bladder, and hung up in the chimney, was of “magical use” in the treatment of yellow jaundice. Christian Franz Paullini’s own son was cured by mixing his own ordure with asses’ urine in this manner. The following are some of the extracts from Schurig referred to in this paragraph: “Ab Incantatione introductis doloribus externe impositum sulphur hoc occidentale magni usus esse dicitur.... Alii addunt allium, atque elapsis post impositionem viginti quatuor horis fumo culinari hæc committunt.... Contra ejusmodi dolores a veneficio alliis placent cataplasmata ex stercore maleficiati in vesicam porcinam injecto et in Caminum ad suffumigandum suspenso.... In veneficio arcendo notum est, quod stercus humanum sit magni usus si scilicet parti ex veneficio dolenti applicetur stercus humanum vel solum, vel cum allio, vel asafœtida; sic enim est ut alii qui perpetravit veneficium sapiant omnia stercus humanum et allium, adeo ut necessum habeant solvere veneficium.... Pro icteri cura magica stercus, vel perse, vel cum urina mixtum, vesicæ suillæ indunt atque in camino suspendunt, Christianus Franciscus Paullini cujusdam meminit, qui filii sui icterici stercus cum urina asini commixtum modo tractavit.”—(Schurig, “Chylologia,” pp. 787, 788.)

When cures were to be effected by the method called by some authors “insemination” each disease seemed to require its special plant. Thus yellow jaundice required swallow-wort and juniper berries; dropsy, absinthe (worm-wood) and box-elder; pleurisy, the poppy; the plague, the plant known as scordium (this plant smells like garlic), etc.—(Frommann, “Tract. de Fascinat.,” p. 1030.)

The following problem is presented for solution or for such explanation as competent scholars may find it possible to give.

We know that every disease was looked upon as an infliction from some angry god; on the other hand, we know also that for each disease there was some god, in later days some saint, to whom the afflicted might appeal; we know also that certain plants were sacred to certain divinities. Therefore the question to be answered is, Were the plants hereinbefore specified those which were sacred to those gods who had charge of those diseases respectively? The examination to be complete should include all that may now survive among European peasantry of the worship of Roman, Phœnician, Celtic, Teutonic, or even Egyptian or Etruscan, deities.

Grimm recites the names of the trees employed for the cure of different diseases,—epilepsy, peach-blossoms; ague, elder-tree; gout, fir-tree; ague, willow; gout, young pine-tree.—(“Teut. Mythology.”)

Why was Apollo supposed to love the laurel and the cornel cherry, “Pluto the cypress and the maiden-hair,—a moisture-loving fern, which we may take for granted could not be very plentiful in his chosen realm,—Luna the dittany, Ceres the daffodil, Jupiter the oak, Minerva the olive, Bacchus the vine, and Venus the myrtle-shade?”—(Extract from an article entitled “Flowers as Emblems,” in “Standard,” London, copied in “Sun,” New York, May 12, 1889.)

“A sick man’s perspiration from the brow wiped off with bread, and given to a dog, will cure the patient.”—(Sagen-Märchen, “Volksaberglauben aus Schwaben,” Freiburg, 1861, p. 494.)

As a certain cure for witchcraft take the excrement of the patient, put it in a pig’s bladder, and hang it up in the chimney; or let him take some of his own excrement, inwardly, dissolved in vinegar; or apply human excrement to the bewitched part, then put that excrement in a pig’s bladder, and hang it up in the chimney to smoke for three or four days.—(Paullini, pp. 260, 261.)

By the French, urine was considered a certain cure for fever. Such an amount of superstition attached to the panacea that the prescription may well be given in full:—

“Knead a small loaf with urine voided in the worst stage of his fever by a person having the quaternary ague. Bake the loaf, let it cool, and give it to be eaten by another person. Repeat the same during three different attacks, and the fever will leave the patient and go to the person who has eaten the bread.”

Another one runs in these terms:—

“Take an egg, boil it hard, and break off the shell. Prick the egg in different places with a needle, steep it in the urine of a person afflicted with fever, and then give it to a man if the patient be a man, to a woman if a woman, and the recipient will acquire the fever, which will abandon the patient.”[85]

This remedy Thiers traces back to the Romans, quoting from Horace in support of his assertion.

The second recipe finds its parallel in the “Chinook olives,” described in the first pages of this work.

The fact that human ordure was the panacea by which all the effects of witchcraft could be undone, and all charms and incantations frustrated, can easily be shown from the citations to be found in Schurig. “Occidental sulphur,” applied externally to the pains occasioned by incantations was said to be very efficacious. Others added garlic, and twenty-four hours after exposed the mixture to the smoke of the kitchen-fire. Others again took the ordure of the bewitched person, made sausage of it, and hung it up to be smoked in the kitchen-fire.

Various instances are given of the efficacy of human ordure in undoing the work of witches; it was to be applied alone or mixed with garlic or assafœtida.

Take a liver, cut in pieces, and secretly place in the urinal of the patient; if the patient unconsciously use the chamber for defecation he will recover—(“Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben,” etc., Drs. Birlinger and Buck, p. 481.)

The method of curing fevers by imbedding clippings of the finger and toe nails of the patient in wax and affixing to another person’s door-post, is mentioned by Pliny (lib. xxxviii. c. 24).

The same are given, with the others already noted, by Frommann.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” p. 1003 et seq.)

Etmuller says that the oak was the tree most highly commended; to secure a good set of teeth, one of the milk teeth was buried in an oak; to restore falling hair, some of the patient’s hair; to cure gout, some of his toe-nail clippings, etc.—(Etmuller, vol. i. p. 127.)

“In Donegal, the sufferer should seek a straw with nine knees, and cut the knots that form the joints of every one of them, any superfluous knots being thrown away; then bury the knot in a midden or dung-heap; and as the joints rot, so will the warts.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” p. 57.)

Grose says, “To cure warts, steal a piece of beef from a butcher’s shop and rub your warts with it; then throw it down the necessary-house, or bury it; and as the beef rots, your warts will decay.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 276, art. “Physical Charms.”)

The American cures for warts in which the sufferer is enjoined to steal a piece of meat, etc., are a perfect “survival” from the above, while the “cure” given by Mark Twain, in his story of “Huckleberry Finn”—

may be classed as a “distorted survival.”

“A piece of meat is cut from one of the arms of the menaced man (i. e. menaced with death), and a lock of hair from the opposite side of his head, and cast into the fire; and he is rubbed with artemisia, dipped in water, as this plant is the food of the ghosts. These rites, omitting the cutting of the flesh and hair, must be performed on four successive nights.”—(“Death and Funeral Customs among the Omahas,” Francis La Flesche, in “Jour. of Amer. Folk-Lore,” Jan.-March, 1889, p. 4.)

“The Orkney islanders will wash a sick person and then throw the water down a gateway in the belief that the sickness will leave the patient and be transferred to the first person who passes through the gate.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 153.)

These cures by “transplantation” are still to be found in full vigor among the descendants of the immigrants from Westphalia and the Palatinate who made their homes in the State of Pennsylvania.

For the cure of jaundice: “Hollow out a carrot, fill it with the patient’s urine, and hang it, by means of a string, in the fireplace. As the urine is evaporated, and the carrot becomes shrivelled, the disease will leave the patient. In this there is an evident belief in the connection between the properties and color of the carrot and the yellow skin of the patient having jaundice. To this class may belong the belief respecting the use of a band of red flannel for diphtheria, and yellow or amber beads for purulent discharges from the ears.”—(“Folk-Med. of the Penn’a Germans,” Hoffman, Amer. Phil. Society, 1889.)

Reference should be had to Black’s notes upon a similar custom in Staffordshire, where, instead of a carrot, a bladder is filled.—(“Folk-Medicine,” p. 56.)

“Convulsions in a child are sometimes due to the influence of the fairies.” Mooney describes a cure effected by a mother who “picked from the roadside ten small white pebbles, known as ‘fairy stones.’ On reaching home, she put nine of these stones into a vessel of urine and threw the tenth into the fire. She also put into the vessel some chicken-dung and three sprigs of a plant (probably ivy or garlic) which grew on the roof above the door. She then stripped the child and threw into the fire the shirt and other garments which were worn next the skin. The child was then washed from head to foot, wrapped in a blanket and put to bed. There were nine hens and a rooster on the rafters above the door. In a short time the child had a violent fit and the nine hens dropped dead upon the floor. The rooster dropped down from his perch, crew three times, and then flew again to the rafters. If the woman had put the tenth stone with the others, he would have dropped dead with the hens. The child was cured.”—(“Med. Mythol. of Ireland,” James Mooney, “Amer. Phil. Soc.” 1887.)

Mooney remarks upon the above: “This single instance combines in itself a number of important features in connection with the popular mythology; the dung, the urine, the plant above the door, the chickens, the fire and the garment worn next the skin, and introduces also a new element into the popular theory of disease, viz.: the idea of vicarious cure, or rather of vicarious sacrifice. This belief, which is general, is that no one can be cured of a dangerous illness, unless, as the people express it, ‘something is left in its place’ to suffer the sickness and death.”—(Idem.)

In the case of a “changeling child,” the mother was ordered to leave it “on the dung-hill to cry and not to pity it.”—(Hazlitt’s edition of “Fairy Tales,” London, 1875, p. 372.)

“At Sucla-Tirtha, in India, an earthen pot containing the accumulated sins of the people, is annually set adrift on the river.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, p. 192, vol. ii.)

See notes under “Catamenial Fluid,” from Etmuller.