'Oddly enough, I read your note on black snails and
the cure for warts only half an hour or so after hearing of a parallel experience,' says a reader who lives in Fordingbridge. 'This came from an old Wiltshire man whom I occasionally come across on our common and who seems to store up items of this kind against our meeting. His story was that a man, while drinking beer in a public house, was stung on the lip by a wasp and then occurred such rapid swelling of the face and mouth that it was feared he might choke. Seeing this, a man ran outside and returned with a large snail in its shell. The snail was pricked and the exuding liquid rubbed on the site of the sting whereupon the swelling immediately began to subside and the man soon recovered. Incidentally. my informant recalled that when he last met me he had some affection of the cheek—wart or mole (he himself thought it might be a cyst)—which he cured on advice of a friend with "fasting spittle." Each morning on awakening he applied his saliva with the tip of his finger and after three months the lesion had disappeared.' In the post following the arrival of this letter came an air-mail from Natal telling of the same saliva cure for warts. It is an animal habit to lick wounds and sores and there may be more to it than mere cleansing.
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