School: Coillte Mághach (roll number 12520)
- Location:
- Kiltamagh, Co. Mayo
- Teacher: Máirtín Ó Cearbhaill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0118, Page 184
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- Though medicine appears, as a study, to have been confined to certain people who held the medical books handed down by their ancestors in olden times it is surprising nevertheless the number of cures or alleged cures that could be got among the ordinary people.
In this district until quite recently, and within the memory of people who are still living, a local man practised surgery to the extent that he used his lance pretty freely to bleed people - which apparently was his special cure for most diseases. He got some standing from the fact that he also used to vaccinate people against the small-pox which was then a veritable plague in the district periodically appearing and carrying away a large percentage. Even those who recovered from it, often did so in an impaired condition. Sometimes, as in the case of Raftery the Irish poet, they lost their eyesight, in other cases the were rendered deaf, and in nearly all(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Máirtín Ó Cearbhaill
- Gender
- Male
