of crocus: it hath greater effects than is credible to any one
that shall barely read this receipt without experiencing."[153]

_Madness._--The early inhabitants of Cornwall used "to place the
disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool, filled with water
from St. Nun's well. The patient, having no intimation of what was
intended, was, by a sudden blow on the breast, tumbled into the pool,
where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength
till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him; he was then
carried to church, and certain masses were sung over him. A similar
practice of the people of Perthshire is noticed by Sir Walter Scott in
_Marmion_.

"Thence to St. Fillan's blessed well,
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore."

_Marasmus._--Mr. Boyle relates the case of a physician whose wan face
betokened a marasmus, and who was induced to try a method not unlike
the sympathetic cures. "He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own
warm urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many
places, and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was kept to be devoured
by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg, he found his distemper to
abate and his strength to increase, insomuch that his disease left
him."[154]

_Rickets._--The most common method of dealing with this disease was by
drawing the children through a split tree. The tree was afterward
bound up and, as it healed and grew together, the children acquired
strength; at least, so 'twas said. Sir John Cullum saw the operation
performed and says that the ash tree was selected as most preferable
for the purpose. "It was split longitudinally about five feet: the
fissure was kept open by the gardener, whilst the friend of the child,
having first stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, almost
head foremost. This accomplished, the tree was bound up with
packthread, and as the bark healed, so it was said the child would
recover. One of the cases was of rickets, the other a rupture."
Drawing the children through a perforated stone was also a cure for
rickets, providing that two brass pins were carefully laid across each
other on the top edge of this stone.[155]

_Sciatica._--Sleeping on stones on a particular night was formerly
practised in Cornwall to cure all forms of lameness. Boneshave was the
term used for sciatica in Exmoor, where the following charm was used
for its cure: The patient must lie