The Midwest pioneer, his ills, cures, & doctors - University Library ...

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house at midnight alone at the full of the moon would take
care of asthma, but bronchitis could be cured by the more
passive means of a stocking turned wrong side out and
worn around the neck over night.
For pleurisy, or "liver
growth," the treatment was somewhat more complicated;
the sufferer should creep around a table leg three times,
stopping exactly at the place of beginning. Some insisted
that one must crawl backwards. A child might obtain the
same result by crawling through a warm horse collar or a
double-rooted blackberry briar. Consumption could be
prevented by eating the fried heart of a rattlesnake which
had not bitten itself. A yellow toad secured from an obliging
neighbor's cellar would, when bound to the throat,
absorb the poisons of quinsy.
Disappointment in love affairs often led to epilepsy.
Restoration to normal faculties might be accomplished by
swallowing the heart of a rattlesnake, sleeping over the cow
stable, or being passed three times through the crotch of a
forked hickory tree which had been wedged open. If the
tree healed and grew the patient would recover. The
afflicted one might prefer to remove his shirt wrong side
out, then place it in a coffin under the head of a corpse, or
to hang onto his right arm and left foot one slice of peony
root for each year of his age; recovery would begin when
the pieces dropped off. As a last resort, he might dig the
roots of the white peony at the rising of the sun when the
sign was in Leo and the moon new on Sunday, taking care
not to handle the root with the bare hands. The root was
then to be dried, enclosed with gold, and worn at the neck.
The hypo was, of course, another serious mental condition.
In addition to the various specifics and herb cures, a
powwow charm was often used: "Put that joint of the
thumb which sits in the palm of the hand on the bare skin
covering the small bone which stands out above the pit of
the heart, and say: 'Matrix, patrix, lay thyself right and
safe. Or thou and I shall on the third day fill the grave.*
So many different brands of fever and ague prevailed
that a general remedy was unknown. Some of the pioneers