der wood or
stone, having many fete, these perced through with a bodken and then
put into the toth, alayeth the payne."[159] A nail driven into an oak
tree is reported to be a cure for this pain, and bones from a
church-yard have from ancient times been used as charms against this
disease.

An early idea was that toothache was caused by a worm and that henbane
seed roasted would cure it. The following from "The School of Salerne"
formulates this superstition:

"If in your teeth you hap to be tormented,
By meane some little wormes therein do breed,
Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented,
Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede;
Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented),
Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed,
And with a tunnel to the tooth that's hollow,
Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow."

Even to-day, I suppose, druggists sell henbane seed for this purpose.
The seed is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders and holding the open
mouth over the rising smoke. The heat causes the seed to sprout, and
thus there appears something similar to a maggot, which is ignorantly
supposed by the sufferer to have dropped from the tooth.[160]

_Warts._--The cures for warts are many and varied. There have been
many charms devised for their removal. Grose gives directions to
"Steal a piece of beef from a butcher's shop, and rub your wart with
it, then throw it down the necessary house, or bury it, and as the
beef rots, your warts will decay."[161] Some have great faith in
having a vagrant count them, mark the number on the inside of his hat,
and then when he leaves the neighborhood he takes the warts with him.
Coffin water was also considered good for them.

"For warts," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we rub our hands before the
moon, and commit any magulated part to the touch of the dead. Old
Women were always famous for curing warts; they were so in Lucian's
time."[162]

Sir Kenelm Digby, in a work already referred to, says: "One would
think that it were folly that one should offer to wash his hands in a
well-polished silver basin, wherein there is not a drop of water, yet
this may be done by the reflection of the moonbeams only, which will
afford it a competent humidity to do it; but they who have tried it,
have found their hands, after they are wiped, to be much moister than
usually; but this is an infallible way to take away warts from the
hands, if it be often used."

Black gives us se