Brande, in his _Popular Antiquities_,[229] says: “A boy, diseased, was recommended by some village crone to have recourse to an alleged remedy, which has actually, in the enlightened days of the nineteenth century, been put in force. He was to obtain thirty pennies from thirty different persons, without telling them why or wherefore the sum was asked; after receiving them, to get them exchanged for a half-crown of sacrament money, which was to be fashioned into a ring and worn by the patient. The pennies were obtained, but the half-crown was wanting--the rector of the place, very properly, declined taking any part in such a gross superstition. However, another reverend gentleman was more pliable; and a ring was formed (or professed to be so) from the half-crown and worn by the boy.” A similar instance, which occurred about fourteen years since, has been furnished to the same work by Mr. R. Bond of Gloucester: “The epilepsy had enervated the mental faculties of an individual moving in a respectable sphere in such a degree as to partially incapacitate him from directing his own affairs; and numerous were the recipes, the gratuitous offering of friends, that were ineffectually resorted to by him. At length, however, he was told of what would certainly be an infallible cure, for in no instance had it failed; it was, to personally collect thirty pence, from as many respectable matrons, and to deliver them into the hands of a silversmith, who, in consideration thereof, would supply him with a ring, wrought out of half a crown, which he was to wear on one of his fingers--and the complaint would immediately forsake him. This advice he followed; and for three or four years the ring ornamented (if we may so express it) his fifth or little finger, notwithstanding the frequent relapses he experienced during that time were sufficient to convince a less ardent mind than his that the fits were proof against its influence. Finally, whilst suffering from a last visitation of that distressing malady, he expired, though wearing the ring--thus exemplifying a striking memento of the absurdity of the means he had had recourse to.”[230] Quite recently, a new means has been contrived for deluding the public in the form of rings, which are to be worn upon the fingers and are said to prevent the occurrence of and cure various diseases. They are called galvanic rings. Although by the contact of the two metals of which they are composed an infinitesimally minute current of electricity (hence, also, of magnetism) is generated, still, from the absurd manner in which the pieces of metal composing the ring are arranged and which displays the most profound ignorance of the laws of electricity and magnetism, no trace of the minute current traverses the finger upon which the ring is worn; so that a wooden ring or none at all would have exactly the same effect as regards the magnetism or galvanism.[231]