whom they may happen to meet. I shall here note another Remedy against
the Ague mentioned as above, viz., by breaking a salted Cake of Bran
and giving it to a Dog, when the fit comes on, by which means they
suppose the malady to be transferred from them to the Animal."[130]
This and similar methods were designated transplantation.

_Bites of Venomous Animals._--It is an old medical superstition that
every animal whose bite is poisonous carries the cure within itself,
but external charms were also used. It was thought that the poison of
the Spanish fly existed in the body, while the head and wings
contained the antidote. "A hair of the dog that bites you" is the cure
for hydrophobia, the fat of the viper was the remedy for its bite, and
"three scruples of the ashes of the witch, when she had been well and
carefully burnt at a stake, is a sure catholicon against all the evil
effects of witchcraft."[131]

Serpents' bites, which were always considered very dangerous, were
said to be healed by people called sauveurs, who had a mark of St.
Catharine's wheel upon their palates. Snake stones, originally brought
from Java, were supposed to absorb the poison by being simply placed
over the bite. Russel mentions a charm against mosquitoes, used in
Aleppo. It consisted of certain unintelligible characters inscribed on
a little slip of paper, which was pasted over the windows or upon the
lintel of the door. One family has obtained, through heredity, the
power of making these charms, and they distribute them on a certain
day of the year without remuneration.

Navarette was told that the best remedy against scorpions was to make
a commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never
failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given
as a cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an
ass, with his face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will
be transmitted from the man to the beast." Or again, a person who was
bitten by either a tarantulla or a mad dog must go nine times round
the town on the Sabbath, calling upon and imploring the assistance of
the saint. On the third night--the prayers being heard and granted,
and the health restored--the madness was removed. The prayer was as
follows:

"Thou who presidest over the Apulian shores,
Thou who curest the bites of mad dogs,
Thou, O Sacred One, ward off this cruel plague,
This dismal gnawing of dogs.
Get the