Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1896 — TO CURE BODILY ILLS. [ARTICLE]

TO CURE BODILY ILLS.

Curious Superstitions that Hold in Different Localities. The number of superstitious cures is ' simply legion. For the cure or prevention of rheumatism some people | carry an ordinary Irish potato in the ■ pocket. In Michigan a double cedar , knot is regarded as the proper charm, ' and in New Hampshire a gall from the ' stem of the golden rod. Hickory nuts, ! buckeyes, pebbles and horse chestnuts I are carried in different localities. Some people wear a ring made of a potato, j and in New Hampshire a potato worn ; in a stocking about the neck is re- ; garded as a sure cure for sore throat. Many people wear a nutmeg pierced I and suspended on a string about their neck, to prevent boils, croup and neuralgia. Just what effect a Connecticut wooden nutmeg would have is not known. On the eastern shore of Maryland ; biliousness is cured by boring three holes in a carefully selected tree and , walking three times around it, saying, "Go away, biliousness.” It is of the utmost importance whether the person working the charm walks with or against the sun, but which is the proper direction no one seems to know. Among the negroes the most striking remedies are to be found. To cure an aching tooth, the Southern negro goes into the swamp, chops around the root of a white oak, secures nine splinters, then cuts around the tooth, and dips the white oak splinters in the blood. The splinters are then buried at the foot of the tree, the operator repeating some kind of charm. This is called “conjuring the tooth.” One of the negro cures for chills and fever is to take the skin from the Inside of an egg shell, go to a young persimmon tree three days in succession, and tie a knot in the skin each day. There are many curious superstitions relative to cures, which still find credence in England, that date from the days of that mysterious people, the Druids. Among the initiated It was only necessary to stop bleeding to place a piece of oak bark on the wound. An ancient Anglo-Saxon superstition for preventing bleeding at the nose was to wear next the skin a portion of “the moss from a dead man’s skull,” which, however, to be potent, must be brought from Ireland, a condition similar tn that of the negroes’ rabbit foot, which must be from the left hind leg of a graveyard rabbit killed at midnight.