In this superstition will be seen the prototype of the wolf mania of mediæval Europe. In Brittany, men betook themselves to the forests in the shape of wolves, out of a morbid passion for the amusement of howling and ravening; but if they left in some secure place the clothes they had thrown off to prepare for the metamorphosis, they had but to reassume them to regain their natural forms. But sometimes a catastrophe, like that above related, took place: the wife discovered the hidden clothes, and carrying them home, in the innocent carefulness of her heart, the poor husband lived and died a _wolf_! PERNICIOUS ERRORS RELATING TO HEALTH. In a former part of this volume, we have spoken of several impositions upon the credulity of the public, in matters appertaining to health. The astrologists have told us that "some plants are only to be plucked at the rising of the _dogstar_, when neither sun nor moon shine, while others are to be cut with a golden knife, when the moon is just six days old." To some particular plants "a string must be fastened, a hungry dog tied thereto, who, being allured by the smell of roasted flesh set before him, may pluck it up by the roots." At one time, the vegetable oil of swallows was considered a potent remedy. It was prepared "by compounding twenty different herbs with _twenty live swallows_, well beaten together in a mortar." Another medicine was prepared from _the raspings of a human skull_; another from the _moss, growing on the head of a thief_, who had been gibbeted and left to hang in the air. In addition to these, we have had "_the powder of a mummy; the liver of frogs; the blood of weasels; an ointment made of sucking whelps; the marrow of a stag; and the thigh bone of an ox_." And we have numerous modern nostrums scarcely better than these, by which the gullible public are often sorely victimized. There are many opinions among the people, which prove highly deleterious in being carried into practice. For instance, that we must "stuff a cold to cure it," when the reverse of the case is the only safe mode of procedure. In a cold, the lungs are already loaded and congested with accumulations of muco-purulent matter, which is increased by taking large quantities of food.