Note 64 — Chapter XVI · Wayside Shrines—The Fox God—Old Druggists’ Shops—Punishing Refractory Idols.

Very remarkable is the place assigned to the fox in the medicine folklore both of Britain and Japan. The Early English prescription for disease of the joints was to take a living fox and seethe him till the bones alone be left, and then bathe repeatedly in this foxy essence. “Wonderfully it healeth!” says the old chronicler. The fox’s liver possessed special curative powers, and indeed each portion of the fox—his gall, the fat of his loin, his lung sodden, etc.—each had special virtues, while those who suffered from foot-addle, i.e. gout, were recommended to wear shoes lined with vixen hide.