Cures for Warts

CURES FOR WARTS.

I. THE vicar of Bodmin found, not long since, a bottle full of pins laid in a newly-made grave. I have heard of this as an unfailing remedy; each wart was touched with a new pin, and the pin then dropped into the bottle. I am not quite certain that it was necessary that the bottle should be placed in a newly-made grave; in many cases burying it in the earth, and especially at a "four cross-roads," was quite sufficient. As the pins rust, the warts decay.

II.  A piece of string should be taken, and as many knots tied on it as there are warts on the body; each wart being carefully touched with the knot dedicated to it. The string is then to be buried, and the warts fade away as it decays. A few years since a ship-wright in Devonport dockyard professed to cure warts by merely receiving from an indifferent person a knotted string,--the knots of which, had been tied by the afflicted. What he did with the string I know not.

III.  To touch each wart with a pebble, place the pebbles in a bag, and to lose the bag on the way to church, was for many years a very favourite remedy; but the unfortunate person who found the bag received the warts. A lady once told me that she picked up such a bag, when a child, and out of curiosity, and in ignorance, examined the contents. The result was that she had, in a short time, as many warts as there were stones in the bag.

IV. Another remedy was to steal a piece of meat from a butcher's stall in the public market, and with this to touch the warts, and bury it. As the meat putrefied the warts decayed.

V.        I remember, when quite a child, having a very large "seedy wart" on one of my fingers. I was taken by a distant relation, an elderly lady, residing in Gwinear, to some old woman, for the purpose of having this wart charmed. I well remember that two charred sticks were taken from the fire on the hearth, and carefully crossed over the fleshy excrescence, while some words were muttered by the charmer. I know not how long it was before the wart disappeared, but certainly, at some time, it did so.