Re: Eschar - oops - epithelioma

[Guest guest]

I mentioned my mother's experience with an epithelioma.

I have just come across a site from the Isle of Man where the very practitioner

she visited is mentioned.

http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/scrap3/ch22.htm as well as

some Manx and other cures.

And this is a link to the site that talks more about these Welsh " doctors of the

Wild Wart " http://www.rhiw.com/pobol/y_ddafad_wyllt_2.htm.

Rowena

"

Specific instances of cures worked by Mylrea are well remembered in the North of

the Island. ... A Liverpool policeman named Crennell, a native of Bride,

consulted the Liverpool Infirmary doctors about a growth of this kind on the

left side of his lower lip. They said it must be cut out at once. He refused to

have it cut, and told them he would ask for leave, go to the Isle of Man, and

have it taken out by Mylrea. They replied, " If this man is successful, will you

put the growth in spirit and bring it back for us to examine ? " He promised to

do so. When he reached the Island he went straight to Mylrea. Mylrea laid him on

his back and took a long look at the cancer. At last he said, " Well, Crennell,

I wish you had come a fortnight sooner. I believe I can draw it out for you even

now, but it will take longer and cost you a lot more pain. " He then made a

" patch " -a small poultice or plaster-and gave it to Crennell with instructions

to wear it for two weeks. During that period he was to lie at night on his right

side only, with the end of a lead pencil, or anything similar, in his mouth to

run off the saliva ; and he was to be careful not to let himself sink into a

deep sleep lest he should swallow the " patch. " In the daytime he was seen, by

one of my informants, walking up and down on the shore with his head wrapped in

a shawl, half mad with pain. At the end of the fortnight Mylrea pulled the

cancer right out. The same informant, H-- of Ballagbenny, who saw it afterwards,

describes it as resembling a leek, with little threadlike roots. Crennell gave

it to the Infirmary doctors, and from it they learned, on dit, more about the

matter than all their surgery had taught them.

Mylrea had inherited the secret from his father and grandfather, and he passed

it on to his son ; but the son was reluctant to use it because of its risky

nature, the chief ingredient being arsenic, i.e. trioxide of arsenic, or its

sublimation.

....10th September, 1932, which gave a detailed account, save for the names of

the ingredients, of a secret cure possessed by a Lleyn (Carnarvonshire) family

for the dafad wyllt, " wild wart, " otherwise epithelioma. " The ointment used

was a potion distilled from locally-grown herbs. Its exact composition was a

secret which had remained in the family for over 100 years. " To the efficacy of

this ointment the present representative of the family held, he stated, over ten

thousand testimonials. A petition was then about to be presented to the local

Member of Parliament to safeguard the remedy, through legal channels, against

any charge of quackery or illegal practices.

.... a retired druggist living in a Flintshire village who has often used a

poultice made of the ordinary garden carrot ... the Physicians of Myddfai used a

decoction made from the foxglove. Rhys, ...In the ish Highlands such

excrescences, and skin-diseases in general, were relieved with two herbs. One

was lus-an-róis, otherwise named lus-an-eallain, " cancer-wort ' , the other was

Herb , Geranium um....In Ireland the herb hound's-tongue,

Cynoglossum, was used,...

In the 1960s when my mother had an epithelioma treated by a folk practitioner in

Wales, the legend was that you had to lie very still while the thing came out,

and if you knocked the top off, that was curtains for you. My mother didn't lie

down, and while rushing around making tea for visitors (family visiting the

sick!), knocked the top off. She lived to nearly a hundred years old.