These same "medidas" may be found in full vogue in the outlying districts of Mexico to-day. Twenty years ago I saw them at the "funcion" of San Francisco, in the little town of Magdalena, in Sonora. I watched carefully to see exactly what the women did and observed that the statue of St. Francis (which, for greater convenience, was exposed outside of the church, where the devout could reach it without disturbing the congregation within) was measured from head to foot with pieces of ribbon, which were then wrapped up and packed away. In reply to my queries, I learned that the "medida" of the head was a specific for headache, that of the waist for all troubles in the abdominal region, those of the legs, arms, and other parts for the ailments peculiar to each of them respectively. This was in a community almost, if not absolutely, Roman Catholic; but in the thoroughly Protestant neighborhood of Carlisle, Pa., the same superstition exists in full vigor, as I know personally. Three years ago my second child was suffering from the troubles incident to retarded dentition and had to be taken to the mountains at Holly Springs, within sight of Carlisle. I was begged and implored by the women living in the place to have the child taken to "a wise woman" to be "measured," and was assured that some of the most intelligent people in that part of the country were firm believers in the superstition. When I declined to lend countenance to such nonsense I was looked upon as a brutal and unnatural parent, caring little for the welfare of his offspring. "In John Bale's Comedye concernynge thre Lawes, 1538 ... Hypocrysy is introduced, mentioning the following charms against barrenness: And as for Lyons, there is the length of our Lorde In a great pyller. She that will with a coorde Be fast bound to it, and _take soche chaunce as fall_ Shall sure have chylde, for within it is hollowe all."[670] When a person in Shetland has received a sprain "it is customary to apply to an individual practiced in casting the 'wrested thread.' This is a thread spun from black wool, on which are cast nine knots, and tied round a sprained leg or arm." It is applied by the medicine-man with the usual amount of gibberish and incantation.[671] These "wresting or wrested threads" are also to be found among Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, and Flemings.[672] Grimm quotes from Chambers's Fireside Stories, Edinburgh, 1842, p. 37: "During the time the operator is putting the thread round the afflicted limb he says, but _in such a tone of voice as not to be heard by the bystanders_, nor even by the person operated upon: "The _Lord_ rade, and the foal slade; he lighted, and he righted, set joint to joint, bone to bone, and sinew to sinew. Heal in the Holy Ghost's name!"[673]