Medical Superstitions in Ireland

WHEN I was a small child I had an attack of whooping-cough, for which ailment I received whatever medical treatment was then in vogue. In addition to this, however, I was taken to the gasworks. The fumes of the gas were no more efficacious than the more orthodox remedies, and as my whooping was apparently distressing to listen to, I was next taken to a large brewery and encouraged to hang over the edges of the vats. A vendor of fruit who came to our door once a week, and who knew everything that was worth knowing and a good deal that was not, was most anxious that I should be passed thrice under the belly of an ass. I was spared this indignity, perhaps because my parents could not be convinced of the efficacy of this cure, and perhaps, no doubt, because they did not at the time know any person possessing a donkey who could be trusted not to kick whilst the rite was being performed. Some years ago I had a housekeeper who had previously lived in the house of a cancer curer in the country, and whose mind was literally crammed with superstitions of every kind. One day, whilst in my service, she sustained a lacerated wound to her hand. I dressed it in the orthodox manner and bound it up, Some hours later I came upon her unawares and found her sitting in a chair. All the dressings had been removed from her wound, and the palm of her hand appeared to be full of water. I looked at her in amazement and asked her what she had done. She looked up at me in some confusion, but said defiantly: "Och ! They say there's great virtue in spittle !" Shortly after I qualified I saw a patient who had just come out in a purpuric rash. I explained to him that the rash was of the nature of small hamorrhages into the skin. "Oh ! bleeding, is it?" said he; "my father can stop any bleeding, he has a cure against it." I have seen many patients who had only come into hospital when a charm had failed to cure them. No later than last week I saw a fine young man of about thirty dying of septicaemia, which had its origin in a wound in his hand, received three weeks prior to his …