[Ads-l] Hair of the dog

[Jonathan Lighter]

There's nothing implausible about the suggested origin of "hair of the
dog."  It may have been a local bite therapy unmentioned in print.

The only other appearance of "child's piss," for example, in EEBO or ECCO,
is in Gervase Markham's
_Markham's master-piece: containing all knowledge belonging to the smith,
farrier, or horse-leach, touching the curing all diseases in horses_
(London: Wotton & Coniers, 1703). (He branches out into human ills in this
case..)

Besides the immediate application of still warm, raw chicken guts (to draw
out the spittle), Markham recommends for the bite of a mad dog "Calamint,
Seed of Wild Tares, Sea-Onions, Water-Cresses, Rue, Balsam, Vinegar, Asses
Milk, Child's Piss, Garlick, Gentian, Mint, Ditany."

And all still work equally well!

JL

On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 2:07 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> > On Jan 1, 2021, at 1:53 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > The OED records the practice from the mid-18th century, but the phrase,
> > applied to drinking, goes back more than 200 years before that.
> >
> > But though _The Kitchin-physician, or, A guide for good-housewives in
> > maintaining their families in health_ , by "T. K., Doctor in
> > Physick"(London: Samuel Lee, 1680), recommends the "hair of the dog that
> > bit you" as a treatment for hangover, no such advice is given "Against
> the
> > biting of a Mad-dog."
> >
> > For that, "Eat sweet brier-wort, and wash the hurt with a young Childs
> > Piss, or with the decoction of Rhue, Figs, red-Coleworts, and Salt
> mingled
> > with honey and butter."
> >
> > JL
>
> Perhaps the recourse to the hair of the offending dog was needed absent a
> suitably micturating young child or red colewort.  Better safe than sorry.
>
>
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 1:14 PM David Daniel <dad at coarsecourses.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Dictionary.com is saying that the expression "hair of the dog" or the
> >> longer
> >> version "hair of the dog that bit you" comes from an old practice of
> >> putting
> >> actual hair from the actual offending dog into the wound of the dog's
> bite
> >> as protection against rabies. Is that correct?
> >> Happy New Year, all.
> >> DAD
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org