"Eily McGarvey, a Donegal wise woman, employs a green thread in her work. She measures her patient three times round the waist with a ribbon, to the outer edge of which is fastened a green thread.... She next hands the patient nine leaves of 'heart fever grass,' or dandelion, gathered by herself, directing him to eat three leaves on successive mornings."[674] Miss Edna Dean Proctor, the poet, told me, June 9, 1887, that some years ago, while visiting relations in Illinois, she met a woman who, having been ill for a long time, had despaired of recovery, and in hope of amelioration had consulted a man pretending to occult powers, who prescribed that she wear next the skin a certain knotted red cord which he gave her. On a previous page the views of Forlong have been presented, showing that there were reasons for believing that the sacred cords of the East Indies could be traced back to an ophic origin, and it has also been shown that, until the present day, among the peasantry of Europe, there has obtained the practice of making girdles of snake skin which have been employed for the cure of disease and as an assistance in childbirth. The snake itself, while still alive, as has been shown, is applied to the person of the patient by the medicine-men of the American Indians. In connection with the remarks taken from Forlong's Rivers of Life on this subject, I should like to call attention to the fact that the long knotted blacksnake whip of the wagoners of Europe and America, which, when not in use, is worn across the body from shoulder to hip, has been identified as related to snake worship.