The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

CURE FOR RHEUMATISM.

A gentleman who was confined to his house for 4 months by a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism was constantly visited by his neighbors during his illness, and in the course of his confinement received from them the following prescription, all said to be infallible in the cure of the disease under which he labored:

applied cold to the part affected: beef brine applied hot: live angle-worms, put on crawling: pulverized brimstone and turpentine, mixed: cider brandy and red pepper, bathe the part, and drink plentifully: cold shower bath: hot medicated vapour bath: raw muskrat's skin, fur next to the part affected: rattlesnake's oil: tar, brimstone, and saltpetre, mixed to a salve and applied hot: skunk's grease: the marrow of a horse's off hind leg: gin and saltpetre to drink: camphor and alcohol: bark of mountain ash, steeped in brandy: root of skunk's cabbage, made a poultice of: marrow of hog's jaws, anoint with it: hops steeped in vinegar: rattlesnake's skins, bound around: slices of fat pork, spread with pulverized saltpetre, and applied: oils of spike, mint, and origanum, equal parts mixed, and bathe: carry a certain bone of a certain animal in my waistcoat pocket nine days,—I promised never to tell what bone this was: eel skins: poke berries put to Jamaica spirits, and drank: ginger and ground red peppers, mixed with hog's lard: showering, as follows—nine pails full of cold water, nine mornings in succession, projected from an elevation of nine feet above the head: old shoes burnt to charcoal, pulverized and mixed with raw whiskey and vinegar, drink nine spoonfuls a day: friction of the part affected by the hands of a pure blooded African: equal parts of wild turnip, Cayenne pepper and gunpowder, steeped in cider brandy, nine days in succession. This is an antidote to inflammation with a vengeance to it; my teeth are yet blazing like oven-wood.