by the sick
Many and marvelous were the methods to be followed scrupulously
by the sick. Cure the stomachache by catching a beetle in both
hands and throwing it over the left shoulder with both hands
without looking backward. Have you intestinal trouble? Eat
mulberries picked with the thumb and ring finger of your left
hand. Do you grow old before your time? Drink water drawn
silently DOWN STREAM from a brook before daylight. Beware of
drawing it upstream; your days will be brief. It reminds one of
the practice of the modern herb doctor in peeling the bark of
slippery elm DOWN, if you desire your cold to come down out of
your head, or peeling it up if you desire the cold to come up
out of your chest. One not desiring to place his trust in roots
and barks and herbs might turn for aid to the odd numbers, and
by reciting an incantation three or seven or nine times might
not only regain health, but recover his lost possessions. Or
the sufferer might transfer his disease by pressing a bird or
small animal to the diseased part and hastily driving the
creature away. The ever-willing and convenient family dog might
be brought into service on such an occasion by being fed a cake
made of barley meal and the sick man"s saliva, or by being
fastened with a string to a mandrake root, which, when thus
pulled from the ground, tore the demon out of the patient.
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