that their medicines and treatments for illness were a mixture
of good sense and superstition:

Parsley was used as a medicine?
Spoon-wort was the approved cure for paralysis?
Mistle-toe was a cure-all?
Vervain was used in the treatment of mental disorders?
Hedge Hyssop was used for diseases of the eye?
Nettles were applied to staunch bleeding?
Fern mixed with egg-white cleared blood-shot eyes?
Spinewort, chopped, and applied in the shell of a limpet
To the temples was the cure for toothache?
The same in a stronger application cured sciatica?
A decoction of Plantain and oil should be applied to an adder-bite?
A dose of Elixir, and three spiders hung around the neck
would cure ague?
To cure jaundice, the physician would run a hot iron along
the bared vertebra, then dash a pail of cold water
over the patient?

 that the "Lee Penny" would prevent the Plague? The "Lee Penny" was a talisman dating back to the Crusades, when it was traded by the Lady of a captured Saracen warrior for the life of her lover. Simon Locard, who, having accompanied "the good Sir James" Douglas to Palestine with the heart of Robert the Bruce in a locked casket, and had changed his name to "Lockhart," refused to surrender his Saracen prisoner until the Lady relinquished the clear, dark red triangular jewel which she claimed had remarkable healing power. Although it could never be identified 'as a recognized gem, it seemed to generate the medicatory qualities which had been claimed for it. Later mounted in an old silver coin with chain attached, it would he dipped three times and swirled once in water later to he drunk by, or in which would he bathed, the sufferer, man or domestic beast. It would frequently be borrowed from the Lockhart family for temporary use, and although at one time £6000 sterling was offered for it, it was considered a family treasure and the family refused to part with it.

 that it has been estimated that 1/3 of all the people in Scot-
land perished from the "Black Death" or "Great Plague" (Bubonic
Plague carried by the rat flea) which swept across Europe during
1349-1350? Not enough "Lee Pennies"?
 
 

 that the Highlanders of old were so robust and hardy, accustomed to bitterly cold weather, that when it was necessary for them to sleep out-of-doors stock-tending, travelling, or in hiding - it was not unusual for them to wring out their great woolen plaids in an icy stream (the cold water tightening the fibers just as hot water will do), and, winding the garment about them, cocoon-wise, covering head and feet, bedding-down for the night in the snow? The damp wool insulated them from the outside cold, and their own body-heat kept them warm all night!