A young frog is held for a few moments with its head
inside the mouth of the sufferer, whom it is supposed to relieve by
taking the malady to itself. "I assure you," said an old woman who
had often superintended such a cure, "we used to hear the poor frog
whooping and coughing, mortal bad, for days after; it would have
made your heart ache to hear the poor creature coughing as it did
about the garden." A Northamptonshire, Devonshire, and Welsh cure
for a cough is to put a hair of the patient's head between two
slices of buttered bread and give the sandwich to a dog. The animal
will thereupon catch the cough and the patient will lose it.
Sometimes an ailment is transferred to an animal by sharing food
with it. Thus in Oldenburg, if you are sick of a fever you set a
bowl of sweet milk before a dog and say, "Good luck, you hound! may
you be sick and I be sound!" Then when the dog has lapped some of
the milk, you take a swig at the bowl; and then the dog must lap
again, and then you must swig again; and when you and the dog have
done it the third time, he will have the fever and you will be quit
of it.
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