The Erroneous Pharmacology of a Cat

"In the spring of 1791, James Woodforde, the parson of Weston Longville in Norfolk, England, developed a painful sty on his right eyelid. Parson Woodforde, however, knew how to treat it: "As it is commonly said that the eyelid being rubbed by the tail of a black cat would do it much good, if not entirely cure it, and having a black cat, a little before dinner I made a trial of it, and very soon after dinner I found my eyelid much abated of the swelling and almost free from pain." He concluded that a cat's tail was of the greatest service for such a condition...

Encumbered in his Norfolk countryside, James Woodforde continued on his ignorant way, overindulging in mackerel and pork and rabbits and beef steak and onion stew. His cat continued to be useful: Woodforde noted that the weather changed whenever the cat washed both her ears, which, he says, "is an old observation and now I must believe it to be a pretty true one." His brother recommended brimstone to him for the cramp, and in the advent of symptoms to hold it in his hand or put it on the affected part. "I did, as I apprehended at one time it was coming into one of my legs, and I felt no more advances of it. This I thought deserving of notice, even in so trifling a book as this."