Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/86

 74 Collectanea. '

man has continued well and has been constantly at work since, and has had no further trouble with his leg. She occasionally sees him now, when he always remarks on the cure she had made. During the time she was attending him the patient had to abstain from malt and spirituous hquors, only drinking light drinks she prepared for him. The nurse told me she got her knowledge of this cure from her grandmother, who was a village doctress, much resorted to by villagers for miles round the place where she lived in York- shire. She had stayed with her grandmother when a child and had seen her perform cures and set broken limbs.

The story of this cure brought to my mind that when, many years ago, a relative of mine was being treated by our doctor for an open wound caused by blood-poisoning, a maid-servant living with us at the time expressed to me her wish that we would use the proper remedy of solutions from dung, instead of the doctor's lotions and ointments.

Miss Burne has kindly given me the following notes of similar remedies, both for external and internal use.

" Cow-sham, s. cow-dung .... It is still used by the lower orders as a cataplasm for bruises and sprains, being applied to the parts affected as hot as the patient can bear it. In fact, whilst these lines are written, I am told that a similar poultice has

just been laid upon Miss J 's leg." Rev. C. H. Hartshorne,

Salopia A?itiqua (1841), p. 376, s.v.

" Coiv-sharn [kou shaar'n], sb. cow-dung. (Shrewsbury. Pulver- batch.) 'The best thing as ever I met 66th fur bad legs is a coiv- sharn pultis.' ' Aye ; 'ow dun 'ee mak' it ? ' ' Tak' a 'antle o' wutmil an' as much cotv-sharn as '11 mix well together, an' piit it on the leg, it '11 swage the swellin' an' mak' it as cool as a cowc66mer.' . . . 'They say that bull's sherne is an excellent complexion, forsooth, to set a fresh rosat or vermilion colour on the ball of the cheeke.' Holland's Pliny, vol. ii., p. 327." G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Word-Book (1879-1881), s.v.i

'■'■Blood-poisoning. — A quantity of dung is caught as it falls from a cow and applied hot to the wound. Oban." (MS. note by the late Dr. Gregor.)

' "Wutmil" is oatmeal. A cow-dung poultice was a remedy known at Edgmond (Salop) in my youth, and considered particularly "drawing" and "searching." These various examples fairly represent the area of the county of Salop.— C. S. Burne.