Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850 | Page 6

look with an evil eye; how, further, a
neighbour's daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a
grudge owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of
pining sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and
how the poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and
finally died, nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny's) strong
belief that she had pined away in consequence of a glance from the evil
eye. Finally, I got from her an account of how any one who chose could
themselves obtain the power of the evil eye, and the receipt was, as
nearly as I can recollect, as follows:--
"Ye gang out ov' a night--ivery night, while ye find nine toads--an'
when ye've gitten t' nine toads, ye hang 'em up ov' a string, an' ye make
a hole and buries t' toads i't hole--and as 't toads pines away, so 't
person pines away 'at you've looked upon wiv a yevil eye, an' they pine
and pine away while they die, without ony disease at all!"
I do not know if this is the orthodox creed respecting the mode of
gaining the power of the evil eye, but it is at all events a genuine piece
of Folk Lore.
The above will corroborate an old story rife in Yorkshire, of an
ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated
as follows:--
"From witches and wizards and long-tail'd buzzards, And creeping
things that run in hedge-bottoms, Good lord, deliver us."
MARGARET GATTY.
Ecclesfield, April 24. 1850.
_Charms._--I beg to represent to the correspondents of the "NOTES

AND QUERIES," especially to the clergy and medical men resident in
the country, that notices of the superstitious practices still prevalent, or
recently prevalent, in different parts of the kingdom, for the cure of
diseases, are highly instructive and even valuable, on many accounts.
Independently of their archæological {430} interest as illustrations of
the mode of thinking and acting of past times, they become really
valuable to the philosophical physician, as throwing light on the natural
history of diseases. The prescribers and practisers of such "charms," as
well as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence of the efficacy
of the prescriptions, in a great many cases: that is to say, the diseases
for which the charms are prescribed _are cured_; and, according to the
mode of reasoning prevalent with prescribers, orthodox and heterodox,
they must be cured by them,--post hoc ergo propter hoc. Unhappily for
the scientific study of diseases, the universal interference of ART in an
active form renders it difficult to meet with pure specimens of corporeal
maladies; and, consequently, it is often difficult to say whether it is
nature or art that must be credited for the event. This is a positive
misfortune, in a scientific point of view. Now, as there can be no
question as to the non-efficiency of charms in a material or physical
point of view (their action through the imagination is a distinct and
important subject of inquiry), it follows that every disease getting well
in the practice of the charmer, is curable and cured by Nature. A
faithful list of such cases could not fail to be most useful to the
scientific inquirer, and to the progress of truth; and it is therefore that I
am desirous of calling the attention of your correspondents to the
subject. As a general rule, it will be found that the diseases in which
charms have obtained most fame as curative are those of long duration,
not dangerous, yet not at all, or very slightly, benefited by ordinary
medicines. In such cases, of course, there is not room for the display of
an imaginary agency:--"For," as Crabbe says,--and I hope your medical
readers will pardon the irreverence--
"For NATURE then has time to work her way; And doing nothing
often has prevailed, When ten physicians have prescribed, and failed."
The notice in your last Number respecting the cure of hooping-cough,
is a capital example of what has just been stated; and I doubt not but
many of your correspondents could supply numerous prescriptions
equally scientific and equally effective. On a future occasion, I will

myself furnish you with some; but as I have already trespassed so far
on your space, I will conclude by naming a few diseases in which the
charmers may be expected to charm most wisely and well. They will all
be found to come within the category of the diseases characterised
above:--Epilepsy, St. Vitus's Dance (_Chorea_), Hysteria, Toothache,
Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma,
Bleeding from the Nose, St. Anthony's Fire or The Rose (_Erysipelas_),
King's Evil (_Scrofula_), Mumps, Rheutmatic Pains, &c., &c.
EMDEE.
April 25. 1850.
_Roasted Mouse._--I have often heard my father