Native Surgery
Sir.—The AVellington medical men who waxed mirthful over tlie cabled statement that a Transvaal native had successfully performed an appendix operation with a pocket-knife evidently knew nothing about tlie surgical skill of some native races. They make the common error of assuming that only white people know anything; they forget that much knowledge which has persisted in so-called primitive races was lost in Europe during the Aliddle Ages, and some of it has not been found again yet. Aljiny native races have an intimate knowledge of anatomy. Cannibalism was a great propagator of knowledge of anatomy, and even where cannibalism has died not much of the knowledge it gave has remained.
AVellington medical men need not go as far as Africa to learn something about native surgery. Trephining of the skull, for instance, has been done by primitive operators in 'New Britain, New Ireland and adjacent islands for hundreds of years, and the first white visitors to Samoa found that the Samoans were familar with the Cesarean operation.—l am, etc., ANTHROP. Wellington, December 16.
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Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 71, 17 December 1935, Page 11
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176Native Surgery Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 71, 17 December 1935, Page 11
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