Browse:Specimens Labeled (Volume 1, entries 892)
Specimens Labeled
Volume 1, entries 892. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → Consultation Technique. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 892
About fifteen years ago [1922] I was workin' to a place an' didn't seem like de peoples seemed to like de way I was gittin' along. I was gittin' along purty well. [Then he becomes ill.] An' come along a colored fellah and his wife an' he told me, he say, they had buried somepin around the place where I worked at to throw me out mah job an' make me unhealthy. So he ast me - he was out de woods - there's a weed in de woods they call gall of de earth. I told [him] I did not [know it]. He say, "Well, you come an' I'll show it to yah. [It was] a little black place right down in de branch here [near Hartsville, S. Car.] an' he take me down there an' says, "Will you know this when you see it again?" I tole 'im, "Yes, I think so." But I ain't seen none of it around heah [Wilmington, N. Car.]. I've been lookin' close for it thinkin' I'd stay in tetch with it. So he had me to send an' git some vinegar. [Previously] I tole him mah right feet was swell up four times big as mornin [normal] - mah leg up to mah hip. I had to drag it. An' he put on a kittle an' heats some water. He put cookin' salt, vinegar an' chamber lye, some sun-cure [rather than smoke-cured] tobacco in it, and strained it out an' this gall of the earth, an' he boiled it about five minutes. Then he got de foot tub and he put a cover over it like this, an' he stirred it a little bit an' he kep' feelin' in it an' it got so he tole me to put mah feet in it. He took dese leaves of this gall of de earth - they's about dat wide I reckon an' about dis long, look kin'a like somepin dey call dog tongue [= hound's-tongue], [used these leaves] like a cloth, an' he bathed mah leg down [magic rite of down- ward] and feet. An' then he took de other handful of green stuff, gall of de earth leaves. He beat 'em up an' he put de salt an' [corn] meal in it, an' then he taken some of this same stuff he bathe mah feet with an' dampen it good all over an' bind mah leg down dis like I'd wrapped it around a wound. An' de next mornin' I could walk. De swellin', ever' bit of it was gone. An' it ain't never hurt me in that ankle since, but ever' year I have a hurtin' in de hip along between now [February] an' de spring of de year.
(How did he say you were hurt?)
He dug - was some kin'a bottle about half as big as that brown bottle yonder, about a half pint, an' it was a lota diff'rent kin'a roots in it. I don't know what dey was in it. An' he took it an' he shuck it up an' he looked at it an' he put some kin'a seal on it an' done some markin' on de paper [he pasted on the bottle] with a pencil an' he tole me did I know way dey a runnin' stream was. I tole him yes. He ast me how fer it was. I tole about a half of mile. So he said, "Well, you arrange to git dere an' throw it in dere at twelve o'clock mid- night." He say, "When you git dere, you jis' say, "Between the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, beside me dere is no other [only time I ever heard this unusual addition, ' an' throw it right over your head, be sure you throw it in the water, an' don't look back at it." He say, "Go on back home. An' den after dat he went off an' died an' I never could tell no more about it by me changes places [moving] comin' over here [to Wilmington]. This happened in Hartsville, South Carolina. [Wilmington, N. Car., (312), 240: l; I interviewed his wife (313), next.]