From Douce's notes, Mr. Brand informs us that it was usual with many persons about Exeter who had ague "to visit at dead of night the nearest cross road five different times, and there bury a new-laid egg. The visit is paid about an hour before the cold fit is expected; and they are persuaded that with the Egg they shall bury the Ague. If the experiment fail, (and the agitation it occasions may often render it successful) they attribute it to some unlucky accident that may have befallen them on the way. In the execution of this matter they observe the strictest silence, taking care not to speak to anyone, whom they may happen to meet. I shall here note another Remedy against the Ague mentioned as above, viz., by breaking a salted Cake of Bran and giving it to a Dog, when the fit comes on, by which means they suppose the malady to be transferred from them to the Animal."[130] This and similar methods were designated transplantation. _Bites of Venomous Animals._--It is an old medical superstition that every animal whose bite is poisonous carries the cure within itself, but external charms were also used. It was thought that the poison of the Spanish fly existed in the body, while the head and wings contained the antidote. "A hair of the dog that bites you" is the cure for hydrophobia, the fat of the viper was the remedy for its bite, and "three scruples of the ashes of the witch, when she had been well and carefully burnt at a stake, is a sure catholicon against all the evil effects of witchcraft."[131] Serpents' bites, which were always considered very dangerous, were said to be healed by people called sauveurs, who had a mark of St. Catharine's wheel upon their palates. Snake stones, originally brought from Java, were supposed to absorb the poison by being simply placed over the bite. Russel mentions a charm against mosquitoes, used in Aleppo. It consisted of certain unintelligible characters inscribed on a little slip of paper, which was pasted over the windows or upon the lintel of the door. One family has obtained, through heredity, the power of making these charms, and they distribute them on a certain day of the year without remuneration. Navarette was told that the best remedy against scorpions was to make a commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given as a cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will be transmitted from the man to the beast." Or again, a person who was bitten by either a tarantulla or a mad dog must go nine times round the town on the Sabbath, calling upon and imploring the assistance of the saint. On the third night--the prayers being heard and granted, and the health restored--the madness was removed. The prayer was as follows: