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]