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Traditional cures: casting the lead and bloodletting.

Date 20 September 1974
Track ID 72786
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1974.197.B3

Original Tape ID

SA1974.197

Summary

Traditional cures: casting the lead and bloodletting.

Casting the lead was a complex supernatural procedure for use when someone was ill. Alec Laurenson suggests that the lead might have been used somehow to stop bleeding after blood had been taken. A colonel in the RAMC [Royal Army Medical Corps] during the war told him that bloodletting had also been very common in Kent in the old days.

Blood was frequently taken from children who were very ill, using a blood horn. One old woman measured ounces with a tea cup that could hold two ounces of tea. She considered the fill of the cup with blood was also two ounces.

Recording Location

County - Shetland

Parish - Delting

Island - Shetland Mainland

Village/Place - Lunnasting, Laxo

Non Scottish Item Location

England, Kent

Item Location

County - Shetland

Parish - Nesting

Island - Shetland Mainland

Village/Place - Lunnasting

Non Scottish Item Location

Sasainn, Kent

Language

English, Scots

Genre

Information

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good