Earrings are considered a good remedy for sore eyes; and in districts where the teasle is grown for use in the manufacture of broadcloth, a preservative against them is found in the water which collects in the hollow cups of that plant. Pure rain-water is reported to be another infallible remedy. This must be carefully collected in a clean open vessel during the month of June, and if preserved in a bottle will, it is said, remain pure for any length of time.
_Thrush._--There is a popular notion that a person must have this complaint once in his life, either at his birth or death. Norfolk nurses prefer to see it in babies, on the plea that it is healthy, and makes them feed more freely; but if it appears in a sick adult person he is generally given over as past recovery. Some of the remedies for this disease are curious, as, for instance, a Cornish one, which recommends the child to be taken fasting on three consecutive mornings, "to have its mouth blown into" by a posthumous child. In Devonshire the parent is advised to take three rushes from any running stream, and to pass them separately through the mouth of the infant. Afterwards the rushes should be thrown into the stream again, and as the current bears them away, so will the thrush, it is said, depart from the child. Should this prove ineffectual, the parent is recommended to capture the nearest duck that can be found, and to place its beak, wide open, within the mouth of the sufferer. As the child inhales the cold breath of the duck, the disease, we are told, will gradually disappear. A further charm consists in reading the eighth Psalm over the child's head three times every day on three days in the week for three successive weeks.
_Toothache._--This common ailment, which produces so much discomfort, unfortunately rarely meets with a degree of sympathy proportionate to the agony it occasions, but has nevertheless been honoured with an extensive folk-lore; and the quaint remedies that superstitious fancy has suggested for its cure would occupy a small volume if treated with anything like fulness. Selecting some of the best known, we may mention one which, in point of efficacy, is considered by many as unsurpassed, namely, a tooth taken from the mouth of a corpse, and worn round the neck as an amulet. Occasionally a double-nut is carried in the pocket for the same purpose. There is a belief, too, that the possession of a Bible or a Prayer Book, with the following legend written in it, is an effectual charm:--"All glory, all glory, all glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was walking in the Garden of Gethsemane, He saw Peter weeping. He called him unto Him, and said, 'Peter, why weepest thou?' Peter answered and said, 'Lord, I am grievously tormented with pain--the pain of my tooth.' Our Lord answered and said, 'If thou wilt believe in Me, and My words abide with thee, thou shalt never feel any more pain in thy tooth.' Peter said, 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.' In the name, &c., God grant M. N. ease from the pain in his tooth." These charm formulas, which constitute an important element in folk-lore literature, are still extensively used in this country to arrest or cure some bodily disease; and they are interesting as being in most cases modified forms of those used by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.