This tale of alternative medicine came originally from the Western Times journalist Elias Tozer but I found it in this form in John Ll. W. Page's The Rivers of Devon, 1893. The story is surely too bizarre not to be true!
"A Teignmouth doctor was attending a poor woman suffering from a sore. One day he found the wound very much inflamed, evidently owing to the application of some gritty substance, of course applied without his authority. For some time he could get no answer to his questions but finally the husband gave way, and stooping down, dragged a piece of stone from under the bed muttering sulkily, 'Tis nothing but Peter's stone and here he is.' It seems that the poor man had walked from Teignmouth to Exeter and under cover of darkness flung stones at the figures on the west front (of the cathedral) until he had detached an arm, which he carried home. Some of the stone had been ground fine, mixed with lard, and spread over the sore."
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