Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/211

Rh Phthisic. A shoemaker by the name of Dennis treated her for it in the following manner. Measuring her height against the door-casing, he bored a hole with an augur at that point, took a lock of hair from her head, placed it in the hole, and then filled the hole with a neat-fitting pin of wood. She never after had the Phthisic. I cannot say whether there was any wheezing about that door-casing or not afterwards.

"To Cure Enlargemefjt of the Spleen.—Pass the afflicted child from east to west, as the sun goes, around the leg of a chair or a table three times.

"To Cure a Wen.—When an entire bone is found lying on the ground (one that has not been broken or cut) rub the bone over the wen, and then replace it in the same position it was in when found.

"The late H. C. Trainor, of Sacramento City, Cal., cured warts by tying three knots in a thread over the wart. The thread did not have to touch the wart, but was held in such a way that the loop for the knot was directly over the wart until drawn into a knot. The thread was then thrown away, and in a very few days the wart would disappear.

"William Dugan, who used to work for my father, had a great reputation for stopping hemorrhages, but I know nothing of the process. You should be able to learn something of it from the Hammonds of Somerset."

Then Mr. Poorman says: "I herewith enclose a memorandum explaining sister Mattie's method for the relief of burns. I make it separate, because of the secrecy necessary and the method of communicating it from one to another. It will not do for a person to tell it to one of the same sex. Mattie has given it to me, and I give it to you. I think those claiming to possess these powers hold, among other things, that the power is lost if the method is too often communicated to others." I have written to-day to Mr. Poorman for permission to publish the Burn Remedy.

Mr. Poorman says that "on one occasion my brother-in-law had a horse that was bleeding profusely from a wound, and all efibrts to stanch the blood were unsuccessful. As a last hope for saving the life of the horse he insisted on Mattie's (his wife) trying her burn remedy. She did so, only varying the latter part to suit the case, and they both say the flow of blood ceased immediately."