Did you know that a child can be cured of the whooping cough by passing it under the belly of a donkey? Or that weak eyes can be cured by the application of chicken dung - or alternatively by large draughts of beer taken in the morning? The history of medicine in Britain is filled with the most bizarre and gruesome cures for many common ailments. Many of them - though enthusiastically supported by the doctors of the time - were often useless, and sometimes lethal! Of the hundreds of cures promoted for warding off the dreaded plague, none were effective. Strange and alarming though many