Toad doctors were practitioners of a specific tradition of medicinal folk magic, operating in western England until the end of the 19th century. Their main concern was healing scrofula (then called "the King's Evil," a skin disease), though they were also believed to cure other ailments including those resulting from witchcraft. They cured the sick by placing a live toad, or the leg of one, in a muslin bag and hanging it around the sick person's neck.[1][2]

References

  1. ↑ March, H. Colley (1899). "Miscellanea: Dorset Folklore collected in 1879". Folklore. Folklore Society. 10: 478–89. doi:10.1080/0015587x.1899.9720514. Retrieved 2009-07-24. p. 479-80.
  2. ↑ Black, William George (1878). Folk Medicine: A Chapter in the History of Culture. Folklore Society. pp. 61–62.
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