The green end of goose dunge steeped in beer

 I am a great believer in the seventeenth century school of medicine ever since reading a common remedy for asthma. It involved placing a young frog in fine muslin and squeezing it down your throat. A fine thread allowed the luckless frog to be pulled up again. Confronted with a dangling piece of glistening slime—one that wriggled—and the exhortation to open my mouth, I don’t doubt for an instance my asthma would be instantly cured. And I would vehemently deny any trace of jaundice if offered ‘the green end of goose dunge steeped in beere.’ The savings for the National Health would be considerable. 

Monmouthshire and Herefordshire are a rich source of old folk remedies guaranteed to cure most illnesses. In the unlikely occurrence of suffering a bite from a mad dog, you would carefully inscribe the following words on a piece of cheese:

Fuary, gary, nary.

Gary,nary fuary

Nary, fuary, gary

And pop it into the mouth of said dog.

A Thomas Whittington of Walford suffered from an abscess in the arm, one that refused to heal. It was a gypsy woman who sorted him out. A fairly simple remedy demanding only that he wore the leg of a toad in a silk bag around his neck until the abscess healed. Whittington overcame what scruples he had, and on finding a toad, cut off its left leg, consoling himself with the thought that the unfortunate amphibian would still be able to hop, albeit with less aplomb. Lacking a silk bag, made do with a handkerchief. In three weeks, his abscess was cured. 

A more wholesome remedy was Good Friday Bread. The bread was kept and crumbled or powdered for use when the need arose. Good Friday Bread never went mouldy and cured a whole range of illnesses, it is said. 

Mistletoe tea cured fits, but only if it had been grown on a Hawthorne tree. A roasted mouse also cured fits though it had to be secreted in food, so the patient (mercifully) had no idea what he/she was eating. 

Hair loss due to illness? No problem. A cap of ivy leaves will do the trick.

Headaches in an age before Ibuprofen? Again, no problem. A noose from the neck of a hanged man will make the headache go away.

Even woodlice have their uses—sewn up alive in a small black bag and tied around a baby’s neck is guaranteed to ease teething.

These beliefs were common and many recorded in the C19th. So please, if any of you out there are suffering from thrush, toothache, whooping cough or warts, please let me know. I have the cure. And if you are wary of vaccinations so too was a man in rural Herefordshire who recently refused to have his child vaccinated in ‘the dog days’ for fear of the child going mad. 

Dog days. I’d heard the term before and vaguely associated it with summer, beyond that nothing. For those who follow the ancient ways: 

"dog days’ lie in-between July 3^rd and August 11^th when the dog star Sirius rises with the sun. It is a time when dogs are prone to go mad " (so have your cheese handy) and when "all liquids are poisonous, when bathing, swimming, or even drinking water can be dangerous, and a time when no sore or wound will heal properly.” 

Closing hospitals during those six weeks would not only save lives but save the NHS millions. You heard it here first.