They considered him better than any
one calling himself a doctor. I remember that his cure for shingles, a
common and dangerous ailment in that region, was regarded as
infallible. The malady took the form of an eruption, like erysipelas,
on the middle of the body and extending round the waist till it formed
a perfect zone. "If the zone is not complete I can cure the disease,"
Don Evaristo would say. He would send some one down to the river to
procure a good-sized toad, then causing the patient to strip, he would
take pen and ink and write on the skin in the space between the two
ends of the inflamed region, in stout letters, the words, _In the
name of the Father_, etc. This done, he would take the toad in his
hand and gently rub it on the inflamed part, and the toad, enraged at
such treatment, would swell himself up almost to bursting and exude a
poisonous milky secretion from his warty skin. That was all, and the
man got well!
If it pleased such a man as that to have six wives instead of one it
was right and proper for him to have them; no person would presume to
say that he was not a good and wise and religious man on that account.
It may be added that Don Evaristo, like Henry VIII, who also had six
wives, was a strictly virtuous man. The only difference was that when
he desired a fresh wife he did not barbarously execute or put away the
one, or the others, he already possessed.
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