Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/85

Rh When some of my own children were ill with measles, a nurse I had in the house told me that children with measles should not be washed nor their bed-linen changed for the first week; and that the sun should be excluded from the room, otherwise they might be made blind for life; and that in her mother's time the children would be put to bed in their clothes, and these would not be changed until after the third day.

II. I do not know any instances of people here giving their children such a variety of medicines as the Boer women give theirs, but I have frequently heard of medicine left over from one illness being given to another child with an entirely different complaint; on the ground that it had done so much good to the first, and it was a pity to waste it.

III. A lady told me a short time ago that she had known Dutch-women make a decoction from the leaves of a plant, and with this liquid, which was of a greenish colour, rub the bodies of their children who were ill with measles or fever. Perhaps the green paint used by the Boer women is a substitute for this green liquid, the knowledge of which is forgotten.

IV. A short time ago a monthly-nurse told me she knew of a man who had had ulcerous sores on one of his legs for years. He walked about with crutches. He was first an out and then an in-patient at St. George's Hospital. Here he was told his case was incurable and advised to have his leg amputated. To this he objected, saying, "I came into the world with two legs and I won't go out of it with one only." He did not then expect to live more than a few months. This nurse had known the man for years, and when she heard of his resolve to die rather than have his leg off, she told him she believed she could cure him if he would submit to her treatment and would promise to let her carry it out for a certain time. The man agreed. The case, she said, was one of blood-poisoning, and the remedy used was cow-dung. The nurse told me she went herself to the place where the cows were kept, and by arrangement with the cowkeeper took the freshly-dropped dung and applied it as a poultice to the wounds, having first carefully washed them. She did this twice a day for a short period, then less frequently. In a fortnight the wounds had begun to heal, and in another week or so the patient was able to walk without his crutch and resume his work. The nurse further said this happened about two years or more ago. The