they see somebody sneezing or yawning. In Scotland, they say to one who sneezes, "Saint Columba be with you." The Jews say, "God give you health." When a child yawns, the nurse must say: "Your weariness and heaviness be on yonder gray stone." The Jews have a custom of giving a new name to a person who is in very bad health. The superstition underlying this is the belief that the Angel of Death is instructed to slay a certain person with a certain particular name. If, however, the name is changed, the angel will be unable to identify the sick man, and death will be thus robbed, for a time at least, of its victim. Among the Celts they give a road name (Ainm Rothard) to the person who is ill; it was given upon the luck (Air sealbhaich) of the person met.
Contagious diseases had quite a variety of treatment in each case. Joubert,[1] speaking of the transmissibility of illnesses, says:
D'ou vient qu'une maladie contagieuse se prend plustost d'un vieux a un jeune qu'au contraire. . . . S'il vray que L'argent ne donnent on apportent jamais la peste.
The ordinary affections of childhood were treated by incantations and exorcisms, or by endeavoring to transfer the disease to the lower animals. For such a disease as smallpox, which counted its victims by the thousands every year, curious medicaments were recommended. Sheep's dung or trickings[2] were administered to such patients. Another procedure was to wrap the patient in a scarlet cloth.
The Chinese make their children wear paper masks on the last night of the year to prevent the god of small-pox from "pouring it out" on them, as he is supposed to attack only pretty children, and thus disfigured they will pass by.[3]
For erysipelas they suggested chantings of witches; but this was not always to be obtained for either love nor money, for the church was quite stringent in its warfare against these old women who rode on broom-sticks and had communion with the devil. In cases where the songs of the "weird women" were not to be heard, several medleys were suggested. The ashes of a woman's hair mixed with the fat of a swine were to be locally applied; or else one half of the ear of a cat was to be cut off and the blood allowed to drop upon the part affected. A less odious procedure and one which has a little sentimentality with it was to rub the ailing part with a golden wedding ring.
The king's evil, or scrofula, was supposed to be curable by the touch of the ruler of England. Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his childhood days, was taken by his father to Queen Anne, in order to cure the child of the malady which affected him. The first king to introduce the king's touch into England was James I. Shakespeare has an allusion to the healing powers of this king in "Macbeth":
