(M68) Again, in respect of the healing virtues of mistletoe the opinion of modern peasants, and even of the learned, has to some extent agreed with that of the ancients. The Druids appear to have called the plant, or perhaps the oak on which it grew, the “all-healer”;(262) and “all-healer” is said to be still a name of the mistletoe in the modern Celtic speech of Brittany, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.(263) On St. John’s morning (Midsummer morning) peasants of Piedmont and Lombardy go out to search the oak-leaves for the “oil of St. John,” which is supposed to heal all wounds made with cutting instruments.(264) Originally, perhaps, the “oil of St. John” was simply the mistletoe, or a decoction made from it. For in Holstein the mistletoe, especially oak-mistletoe, is still regarded as a panacea for green wounds and as a sure charm to secure success in hunting;(265) and at Lacaune, in the south of France, the old Druidical belief in the mistletoe as an antidote to all poisons still survives among the peasantry; they apply the plant to the stomach of the sufferer or give him a decoction of it to drink.(266) Again, the ancient belief that mistletoe is a cure for epilepsy has survived in modern times not only among the ignorant but among the learned. Thus in Sweden persons afflicted with the falling sickness think they can ward off attacks of the malady by carrying about with them a knife which has a handle of oak mistletoe;(267) and in Germany for a similar purpose pieces of mistletoe used to be hung round the necks of children.(268) In the French province of Bourbonnais a popular remedy for epilepsy is a decoction of mistletoe which has been gathered on an oak on St. John’s Day and boiled with rye-flour.(269) So at Bottesford in Lincolnshire a decoction of mistletoe is supposed to be a palliative for this terrible disease.(270) Indeed mistletoe was recommended as a remedy for the falling sickness by high medical authorities in England and Holland down to the eighteenth century.(271) At Kirton-in-Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, it is thought that St. Vitus’s dance may be cured by the water in which mistletoe berries have been boiled.(272) In the Scotch shires of Elgin and Moray, down to the second half of the eighteenth century, at the full moon of March people used to cut withes of mistletoe or ivy, make circles of them, keep them all the year, and profess to cure hectics and other troubles by means of them.(273) In Sweden, apparently, for other complaints a sprig of mistletoe is hung round the patient’s neck or a ring of it is worn on his finger.(274)