Snails in Old-fashioned Medicines.
At the beginning of the 19th century, George Calvert compiled a notebook of North Yorkshire folklore. In an account of a cancer cure, which he obtained from William Ness, of Kirbymoorside, he quotes amongst the ingredients: "One dozen snails and shells dried while they powder with gentle rubbing."
In 1719, there was printed and sold in London "A Collection of above 300 Receipts in Cookery, Physick, and Surgery," in which was given "A very good snail-water for consumption. Take half a peck of snail-shells, wipe them and bruise them, shells and all, in a mortar; put to them a gallon of new milk," etc.
It has long been the custom for glass-makers or glass-blowers to gather snails to make snail soup, which they consider to be beneficial to them in curing the disease incident to their trade.
Newmarket Journal, 1st June 1929.
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