Cape Breton's Magazine

Several people told us of a cure for asthma. It would work only for someone who is not fully grown, Duncan Morrison said they would blindfold the patient and take him to a tree and bore a hole in that tree at the patient's height and put into that hole a lock of his hair. Then a plug would be driven into that hole. The blindfold was kept on and he was led away so he could never know where that lock of hair was. And when he'd grow up higher than the hole he'd be clear of the asthma. According to Pere Anselme Chiasson in his excellent book about Cheticamp, this was among the cures used by the French-Acadians; but apparently the hair had to be taken at the height of the illness and the patient did not have to actually go to the woods: "Prendre la hauteur du raalade. Couper un toron de ses cheveux. Aller dans le bois, y trouver un arbre cache et y percer a la tariere un trou a la meme hauteur que celle du malade; mettre les cheveux dans ce trou, Quand le malade depasse cette hauteur en grandissant, il guerit," Dan Angus Kerr, whose son was cured of asthma in this way, added that you would want it to be a tree in a gulch, some place you'd be pretty certain no one would come and cut it down. And John William Morrison told us of two young men taken to the woods, both of thera sufferers of asthma. They were simply told not to open their eyes. But on the way back home one of the two looked back at the tree that contained a lock of his hair. And when they grew above the hole, the one who had not looked was clear of the asthma, and the man who looked back suffered from it all of his life, Mary Burns, Baddeck, told us a Seventh Son, a MacLeod, cured a woman of asthma when he told her to get rid of her yellow cat and to wear her husband's dirty sock around her neck. And there are a number of people we talked to who were themselves cured by the Seventh Son, who is said to be able to cure almost anything. It can be a Seventh Daughter as well, and actually it is the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son who has the greatest power. Donald Garrett MacDonald said you could see a Seventh Son of a Se? venth Son, or you had to see seven different men, each themselves a Seventh Son. Mike Doyle said the skin along his jaw and at his neck was all eaten away • a kind of skin cancer known as The King's Evil, He had seen a doctor a whole winter without success. He then went to Alex Hines, a Seventh Son in Ingonish, and he had to go only one time, Hines asked for a five-cent piece from Doyle's pocket, and he got a bottle of ordinary well water and dipped the coin in the water and rubbed it on the sore face and neck. Hines returned the coin and told Doyle not to lose it, and he gave him the water to rub on his neck once in a while. In two weeks Doyle was cured. He carried that coin with him to the war in France and back • then lost it. But The King's Evil has never returned. Dan Angus Kerr, North River, said: Every doctor that I was to see, they were sayin it was cancer of the bone. And the only cure was to cut my leg off right at the hip. That was in 1911 or 1912, So I went to the Seventh Son, Neily MacLeod, He was from South Haven, And he dipped five cents in a saucer with a little bit of water and started rubbing my hip there. And he did that 3 morn? ings. And after that it broke, the bones started coming out--cracking and coming Seal Island Trailer Park New Harris Road, just off Route 105 at the Seal Island Bridge CENTRALLY LOCATED TO ALL ATTRACTIONS Trailer Hook-ups Camping Laundromat Showers Swimming Pool Supplies Horses Trail Rides J W. StepKer s Limited BUILDERS SUPPLIES HARDWARE AND PAINTS WOODWORKERS AND MIU WORK Phone the Lumber Number 564-5554 Sydrxey . IXoVa. Scotidw A menbex of the BOLD organization We feature (beside what you would find in any complete drug store and souvenir center) these items: Moklttks Staplers I'oys Foot Rot Remedy Brass Cuspidors Robber Worms Cow, calf, horsey pig China and chicken medicine Ant Traps Records 10' Ice Cream Salmon eggs Cones Muskrat Pelt Stretchers Insense Kerosene Lamps Horoscopes Fishing Gear Hunting Knives PRESCRIPTIONS PILLED WHILE YOD WAIT STONE'S in BADDECK Cape Breton's Magazine/21