The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

6o THE EVIL EYE chap.
snail upon a white thorn, and as the snail dries up
and 'goes away' so will the wart."^° Another is:
" Steal a piece of fresh raw beef and rub that upon
the wart, then bury it where nobody sees, and as
the meat perishes, so will the wart." In_both these
cases secrecy is of the essence of the act—if any one
is told or knows what is done, except the person
performing, the result will be nothing. Sympathetic
medicine is no less an active force than the evilworking
magic of which examples have been given.
The following recipe, called " The Cure of Wounds
by the Powder of Sympathy," is a serious one, and
throws light upon the art and science of surgery
just two hundred years ago.
Take good English Vitriol which you may buy for ad. a
pound, dissolve it in warm water, using no more than will dis-
solve it, leaving some of the impurest part at the bottom undis-
solved, then pour it off and filtre it, which you may do by a
coffin of pure gray paper put into a Funnel, or by laying a sheet
of gray paper in a sieve, and pouring your water or Dissolution
of Vitriol into it by degrees, setting the sieve upon a large Pan
to receive the filtred Liquor : when all your Liquor is filtred boyl
it in an Earthen vessel glazed, till you see a thin scum upon it
then set in a cellar to cool covering it loosly, so that nothing may
fall in : after two or three days standing, pour off the Liquor, and
you will find at the bottom and on the sides large and fair green
Chrystals like Emerauds : drain off all the water clean from them,
and dry them, then spread them abroad in a large flat earthen
dish, and expose them to the hot sun on the Dog-days, taking
them in at Night and setting them out in the Morning, securing
them from the rain ; and when the Sun hath calcin'd them to
whiteness, beat them to powder and set this powder again in the
Sun, stirring it sometimes, and when you see it perfectly white,
powder it, and sift it finely, and set it again in the Sun. for a day,
and you will have a pure white powder, which is the Powder of
Sympathy, which put in a glass and stop it close. The next year
when the Dog-days come if you have any of this powder left
^^ Compare this with the many examples of sending away various diseases
by hanging articles on trees, given by Dr. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 137.
;