Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1911 — Styrian Peasant Superstition. [ARTICLE]

Styrian Peasant Superstition.

A law suit for libel brought by an apothecary in Pollan, in Styria, against a young peasant reveals an extraordinary superstition prevalent among the country people. They believe that apothecaries and doctors have the right to kill at least one man and one woman ever year in order to make medicines out Of their bodies. An accidental movement of the apothecary at Pollau, Herr Kobermauser, when giving medicine to a boy named Putz led the latter to belleve he was going to be killed. He ran away, but got such a fright that he fell Ul. The inhabitants believed his story and boycotted the apothecary. who was at length compelled to nrosecute Putz was sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment* but hie parents who had spread the story i won acquitted on the ground that they W ID KXX MU. I