Browse:Measuring (Volume 1, entries 1082)
Measuring
Volume 1, entries 1082. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → FOLK MEDICINE (1) PRINCIPLES OF HEALING. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1082
Well, for instance, somebody might have the measles - that's the first thing to start with, a child with the measles. You cut right in the mole [mold] of his head - a strand of hair out of the mole of his head. Go right direct to that tree and take that child and stand him right up there like that - have to be a young tree though, willow tree or something of that kind that's growing - and you just take a auger and bore a hole right in there and take that hair.
(Right from the top of his head?)
Yes. Take that hair and put it up in there and take a stob [peg or stake] and drive it up in there, and the more that he grows over that [taller than the stob] why you [he] improve. [After the cure] you transport it [the hair] back here where most the people can see. [This public display of hair causing the cure violates the fundamental rule of secrecy; the cured ailment could have returned. I would say that something more than ordinary measles is involved here, because usually magic measurement of a child is confined to recurrent disorders. For a child measured against a tree to cure asthma, see FACI,2ed., Nos. 5660-71, Pp.254-255. Also for various complaints children are measured against many objects: door, fireplace, wall, floor, ground, stick, string.]