Letter: Bard's medicine

From James Thirsk

Elie Dahan recalls his granny attempting to apply a spider’s web to his
bleeding knee
(5 February, p 55).
There is an even earlier reference to this
practice in Shakespeare. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the following
conversation takes place when Bottom the weaver is being introduced to Titania’s
fairies:

Bottom: . . . I beseech your worship’s name.

Cobweb: Cobweb.

Bottom: I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb. If I cut
my finger I shall make bold with you.

Probably the remedy was known long before Shakespeare’s time.

Tonbridge