Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/210

186 the child three times from the head to the feet. The string is wound around the hinge of a door or gate, and as the string is worn away the child is restored to health. Mrs. Harper put the string on a wooden hinge. These were much used at that time on gates and barn doors. I presume an iron hinge would answer the same purpose.

Mrs. John Wiseiman's Cure for the Thrush (Sore Mouth).—"Three straws were obtained from the barnyard, which were broken or cut into equal lengths of about three inches. These were bound together in the middle with a string. The bundle thus formed was then passed between the lips of the afflicted child three times from right to left. The bundle of straws was then buried in the manure pile in the barnyard, where it remained until the next 'trying,' as it was called. In severe cases the operation, with the same bundle of straws, was repeated three times at intervals of half an hour. This whole process with the same straws was repeated in twelve hours, and again in twenty-four hours, making in all nine 'tryings.' This would suffice for the most obstinate cases. In moderate cases there would be three 'tryings' at intervals of twelve hours. Whether in the various resurrections of the bundle of straws there was any cleansing I do not know, but I presume not.

"Sallie Jackson, my sister's oldest child, when an infant, was so badly afflicted with Thrush that blood oozed from her mouth whenever she opened it. Mrs. Wiseman operated on her. On the first 'trying' blood flowed from her mouth in a stream, on the second 'trying,' in half an hour, a very little blood was seen, and on the third there was no blood. My sister was directed to return the following morning (twelve hours later), but when morning came she found the child's mouth entirely well! There was no further treatment, and no more Thrush.

"Mrs. Wiseman treated a Mrs. Aumentrout, of Thornville, Ohio, to whose breasts the disease had been communicated by her child. They were in such condition that the doctors had decided to remove them to save her life. The treatment was the same as for the child, passing the straws over her breasts as they were passed through the lips of the child. In this case there were three trials, or 'tryings,' at half-hour intervals, which were repeated in twelve and in twenty-four hours. At the last of these tryings no signs of Thrush remained.

"When a child, my oldest sister was badly afflicted with