Grandmother Cooper, a gipsy of note for skill in healing, practised the cure of inflamed and scrofulous eyes, by anointing them with clay, rubbed up with her spittle, which proved highly successful. Outside was applied a piece of rag kept wet with water in which a cabbage had been boiled. As confirmatory of this cure, we read reverently in the _Gospel of St. John_ about the man "which was blind from his birth," and for whose restoration to sight our Saviour "spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." More than one eminent oculist has similarly advised that weak, ailing eyes should be daily wetted on waking with the fasting saliva. And it is well known that "mothers' marks" of a superficial character, but even of a considerable size, become dissipated by a daily licking with the mother's tongue. Old Mizaldus taught that "the fasting spittle of a whole and sound person both quite taketh away all scurviness, or redness of the face, ringworms, tetters, and all kinds [179] of pustules, by smearing or rubbing the infected place therewith; and likewise it clean puts away thereby all painful swelling by the means of any venomous thing as hornets, spiders, toads, and such like." Healthy saliva is slightly alkaline, and contains sulphocyanate of potassium. FENNEL. We all know the pleasant taste of Fennel sauce when eaten with boiled mackerel. This culinary condiment is made with Sweet Fennel, cultivated in our kitchen gardens, and which is a variety of the wild Fennel growing commonly in England as the Finkel, especially in Cornwall and Devon, on chalky cliffs near the sea. It is then an aromatic plant of the umbelliferous order, but differing from the rest of its tribe in producing bright yellow flowers. Botanically, it is the _Anethum foeniculum_, or "small fragrant hay" of the Romans, and the _Marathron_ of the Greeks. The whole plant has a warm carminative taste, and the old Greeks esteemed it highly for promoting the secretion of milk in nursing mothers. Macer alleged that the use of Fennel was first taught to man by serpents. His classical lines on the subject when translated run thus:-- "By eating herb of Fennel, for the eyes A cure for blindness had the serpent wise; Man tried the plant; and, trusting that his sight Might thus be healed, rejoiced to find him right." "Hac mansa serpens oculos caligine purgat; Indeque compertum est humanis posse mederi Illum hominibus: atque experiendo probatum est." Pliny also asserts that the ophidia, when they cast their skins, have recourse to this plant for restoring their [180] sight. Others have averred that serpents wax young again by eating of the herb; "Wherefore the use of it is very meet for aged folk."