Old Old Cures

When Cattle Are Bewitched

How do you know when cattle are plagued by witches? The hair stand on end, or bristle on the head, and they generally sweat by night or near dawn of day.

The cure:

Take Witchcraft Balsam, Glow Worm Oil, Black Juniper Berry, Oil of Rue, Oil of Turpentine, two cents worth of each. Give this mixture to the cattle; also, some Balsam of Sulphur.

Found in:
Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences

Salves To Heal Up Wounds

From Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hoffman we have these three recipes for a salve to heal up wounds:

  • Tobacco and Elder

Take tobacco, green or dry; if green a good handful, if dry, two ounces; together with this take a good handful of elder leaves, fry them well in butter, press it through a cloth, and you may. use it in a salve. This will heal up a wound in a short time.

  • Oak Bark and Tallow

Or go to a white oak tree that stands pretty well isolated, and scrape off the rough bark from the eastern side of the tree; then cut off the inner bark, break it into small pieces, and boil it until all the strength is drawn out; strain it through a piece of linen, and boil it again, until it becomes as thick as tar; then take out as much as you need, and put to it an equal proportion of sheep-tallow, rosin and wax, and work them together until they form a salve. This salve you put on a piece of linen, very thinly spread, and lay it on the wound, renewing it occasionally till the wound is healed up.

  • Parsley and Butter

Or take a handful of parsley, pound it fine, and work it to a salve with an equal proportion of fresh butter. This salve prevents mortification and heals very fast.

Healing With The Fingertips

From Healing and Mental Purification by Hazrat Inayat Khan, we have this instruction for healing with the fingertips:

Hygiene is the first subject to consider in healing with the tips of the fingers. Hands that have been engaged in any work or that are stained with any liquid must be washed for healing. The healer must first observe the hygienic rules of keeping his body, as well as his clothes, pure and clean; especially at the time of healing he must be absolutely free from all that is unhygienic. The sleeves, at the time of healing, must be rolled back, and the fingernails must be clean and properly trimmed.

After healing, one should wave the hand, as it were shaking it, to shake off any fine atoms, or even vibrations, so that a poison taken from the painful part of the patient may not be given to the patient again.

There are cases in which the sensation of the body is deadened by the pain, and the pain has gone into the depth of the affected part of the body. In such cases waving the hand or touching is not enough. Rubbing is necessary.

When dealing with the effects of poison from the sting of a bee or scorpion, or from snake-bite or the bite of any other poisonous animal, a simple soft touch or stroking of the affected part is indicated. If the pain is more intense touch is not necessary, simply the waving of the hand close to the affected part.

In the case of the bite of a mad dog, one should put some lime, mixed with water on a copper coin and tie it on the part that the teeth have touched, and the rest of the affected part must be healed by touching and stroking it with the tips of the fingers.

Bites of mosquitoes and midges may be cured by applying butter, that has been boiled and allowed to cool, and then waving the hand over the affected part.

Rosewater may be used for bites of all kinds, in cases of severe in inflammation.

 

Ladybird Toothache Cure

In the West-country at one time, the yellowish liquid which the Ladybird (ladybug) exudes when alarmed was considered a good remedy for toothache. The sufferer rubbed his finger on the ladybird’s legs and then transferred the liquid so collected to his aching tooth.

~From: The Encylopedia of Superstitions

3 Pow Wow Epilepsy Cures

  • 1. Take a turtle dove, cut its throat, and let the person afflicted with epilepsy, drink the blood.
  • 2. This remedy is only effective it the subject had never fallen into fire or water:

Write reversedly or backwards upon a piece of paper: “IT IS ALL OVER!” This is to be written but once upon the paper; then put it in a scarlet-red cloth, and then wrap it in a piece of unbleached linen, and hang it around the neck on the first Friday of the new moon. The thread with which it is tied must also be unbleached.

  • 3. To cure fits or convulsions:

You must go upon another person’s land, and repeat the following words: “I go before another court–I tie up my 77-fold fits.” Then cut three small twigs off any tree on the land; in each twig you must make a knot. This must be done on a Friday morning before sunrise, in the decrease of the moon unbeshrewdly. + + + Then over your body where you feel the fits you make the crosses. And thus they may be made in all cases where they are applied.

From: Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hoffman, [1820]

Epilepsy Cure From 1828

The following remedy for Epilepsy was published in Lancaster (Pa.) papers, in the year 1828.

TO SUFFERING HUMANITY.

We ourselves know of many unfortunate beings who are afflicted with epilepsy, yet how many more may be in the country who have perhaps already spent their fortunes in seeking aid in this disease, without gaining relief. We have now been informed of a remedy which is said to be infallible, and which has been adopted by the most distinguished physicians in Europe, and has so well stood the test of repeated trials that it is now generally applied in Europe.

It directs a bedroom for the sick person to be fitted up over the cow-stable, where the patient must sleep at night, and should spend the greater part of his time during the day in it. This is easily done by building a regular room over the stable. Then care is to be taken to leave an opening in the ceiling of the stable, in such a manner that the evaporation from the same can pass into the room, while, at the same time, the cow may inhale the perspiration of the sick person.

In this way the animal will gradually attract the whole disease, and be affected with arthritic attacks, and when the patient has entirely lost them the cow will fall dead to the ground. The stable must not be cleaned during the operation, though fresh straw or bay may be put in; and of course, the milk of the cow, as long as she gives any, must be thrown away as useless.

~Lancaster Eagle

Pow Wow Toothache Remedy

Stir the sore tooth with a needle until it draws blood; then take a thread and soak it with this blood. Then take vinegar and flour, mix them well so as to form a paste and spread it on a rag, then wrap this rag around the root of an apple-tree, and tie it very close with the above thread, after which the root must be well covered with ground.

From: Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hoffman, [1820]

Cure For The Toothache

Hoffman, the author of this book, has cured the severest toothache more than sixty times, with this remedy, and, out of the sixty times he applied it, it failed but once in affecting a cure. Take blue vitriol and put a piece of it in the hollow tooth, yet not too much; spit out the water that collects in the mouth, and be careful to swallow none. I do not know whether it is good for teeth that are not hollow, but I should judge it would cure any kind of toothache.

From: Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hoffman, [1820]

When Someone Is Sick…

Another Remedy to be applied when anyone is sick, which has effected many a cure where doctors could not help. Let the sick person, without having conversed with anyone, put water in a bottle before sunrise, close it up tight, and put it immediately in some box or chest. lock it and stop up the keyhole; the key must be carried one of the pockets for three days, as nobody dare have it except the person who puts the bottle with water in the chest or box.

From: Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hoffman, [1820]

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