More than 240 entries representing folk medical practices used in North
America, Britain, Ireland, and Scotland were gleaned from extensive
research. Articles are followed by no less than a dozen scholarly
references related to the study of superstition and folklore. Ranging
from a concise paragraph to several pages in length, entries include
the treating of ailments and conditions such as
Insect bites and stings (applying spit, urine, soda, vinegar, or well-chewed tobacco);
Palsy (ingesting cowslip, applying leeches, or holding a dying chicken); and
wrinkles (drinking elderflower water, goat's milk, or an infusion of butterwort) and the supporting of
contraception
(using birch bark diaphragms, impotence-inducing Rhus trilobata, or
eating heart ventricles). Other entries discuss the various uses of
remedies such as
dandelion and
Holly.
See also references follow each article, and an index completes the volume.
