QUACKS OF OTHER DAYS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 August 1924, Page 10

QUACKS OF OTHER DAYS.

ASTONISHING IDEAS OF OUR

FOREFATHERS

Both Washington and Cavour were killed by their doctors, for when they were both, ill their physicians, acting according to custom, bled them, amt through their ignorance bled the two great men to kteath. To us the old idea that bleeding is the sovereign cure for all ills seems ridiculous, blit there were beliefs and practices even more ainazing than this. Dr. Johnson and his contemporaries believed that a touch from the King was sufficient to cure scrofula, and ±"epys iii his. diary speaks of the Queen’s illness, and says tnat ‘"she had to be shaved and pigeons put to her feet.’’ AVe are inclined to smile when we hear that in Brittany a fried mouse is declared to cure smallpox, or that a spider in a nutshell worn around the neck keeps away fever, or that three hairs from the cross on an ass’ hack will cure whooping cough, though- the ass will die; but our grandparents and their grandparents had ideas equally astonishing.

“Snails,” said our forefathers, “boiled in barley water will cure ah ordinary cough.” Should a sixteenth century person be afflicted with warts, then, said the book of charms, “Put three droppes of the blood of a wart in an eldern leaf and burie it in the earthe, and the warts will vanish away.” Another queer remedy, this time for gout, was to place flowers of the lily of the valley in a bottle, bury the bottle in an ant heap, and then, after a month, unearth the bottle, and the liquor inside would be a perfect cure. Readers of Beaumont and Fletcher’s comedy, “The Knight of the Burning Pestle,” will remember that instructions are given to sufferers from chilblains to rub the feet well with a mouse skin and to roll the feet and ankles ip. hot embers!