"Peter sat on a marble stone weeping; Christ came past, and said, 'What aileth thee, Peter?' 'O my Lord, my God, my tooth doth ache.' 'Arise, O Peter! go thy way; thy tooth shall ache no more.'"
This notion is still current in Germany, and is mentioned by Thorpe, in his "Northern Mythology" (vol. iii. p. 167), who quotes a North German incantation, beginning,
"Pear tree, I complain to thee; Three worms sting me."
It is found, too, even in China and New Zealand,[633] the following charm being used in the latter country:
"An eel, a spiny back True indeed, indeed: true in sooth, in sooth. You must eat the head Of said spiny back."
[633] See Shortland's "Traditions and Superstitions of the New-Zealanders," 1856, p. 131.
A writer in the _Athenæum_ (Jan. 28, 1860), speaking of the Rev. R. H. Cobbold's "Pictures of the Chinese, Drawn by Themselves," says: "The first portrait is that of a quack doctress, who pretends to cure toothache by extracting a maggot--the cause of the disorder. This is done--or, rather, pretended to be done--by simply placing a bright steel pin on the part affected, and tapping the pin with a piece of wood. Mr. Cobbold compares the operation to procuring worms for fishing by working a spade backwards and forwards in the ground. He and a friend submitted to the process, but in a very short time compelled the doctress to desist, by the excessive precautions they took against imposition." We may further note that John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authors, attributes decay of the teeth to "a humour or a worm." In his "Rosa Anglica"[634] he says: "Si vermes sint in dentibus, Rx semen porri, seu lusquiami contere et misce cum cera, pone super carbones, et fumus recipiatur per embotum, quoniam sanat. Solum etiam semen lusquiami valet coctum in aqua calida, supra quam aquam patiens palatum apertum si tenuerit, cadent vermes evidenter vel in illam aquam, vel in aliam quæ ibi fuerit ibi posita. De myrrha et aloe ponantur in dentem, ubi est vermis: semen caulis, et absinthium, per se vermes interficit."
[634] Liber Secundus--"De Febribus," p. 923, ed. 1595.
_Tub-fast._ In years past "the discipline of sweating in a heated tub for a considerable time, accompanied with strict abstinence, was thought necessary for the cure of venereal taint."[635] Thus, in "Timon of Athens" (iv. 3), Timon says to Timandra: