DICK THE DOCTOR

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3326, 7 July 1931, Page 3

DICK THE DOCTOR

BORNEO MONKEY MEDICINE. Was the first doctor a monkey? Animals doctor themselves when they are sick, but there has been at least one monkey who tried to doctor other animals. His name was Dick, and he came from Borneo.

The story of Dick is told by Joseph Delmont, the German novelist and big game hunter, in a new book, "Catching Wild Beasts Alive," reviewed in the London Daily Express. One day Dick had a battle with a tapir, and soon all the denizens of the yard were fighting. Many were wounded. "While I was sewing and binding the wounds," says Mr. Delmont, "Dick never left my side. He assumed an air of great importance, and kept seizing my hand, puckering his lips, and lecturing me on the way I should work, until I was on the point of having him caged up so that I could get on."

Mr. Delmont bound Dick's finger. A little later there was a scream, and he saw Dick holding a guenon monkey. Dick had torn off a bandage that was on the screaming monkey, and was pressing wet clay into the wound.

"During the following days," he says, "Dick was extraordinarily busy. The big monkeys had continually to defend themselves against his efforts to treat them, and Dick was always in trouble.

"Dick went very systematically to work with his cures. He would wash the wounds with his tongue and with wet leaves off betel nut. . . . Dick never used any other leaves."

One day Dick sat on a log with his head on one side. His hand was hot and his pulse irregular. "What's the matter, Dick?" asked Mr. Delmont. Dick opened his mouth. He was given medicine. Next morning Dick sat in the sun, with both hands to his left cheek. "When I came to him," says Mr. Delmont, "I noticed to my astonishment that he had smeared the left half of his face with wet clay and was holding a big lump of clay pressed to his left lower jaw. His mouth was also full of clay.

"I noticed that the left half of the orang's face was swollen. He had a severe gumboil, and was curing himself with cold clay.

"Three days later he himself pulled out the ailing tooth and brought it to me, beaming with delight. "Dick spent a good deal of his time reporting to me the ailments of other animals. He was the first to discover that one of the orang orphans was sick with tuberculosis. Dick carried the little invalid about the whole day like a mother."

The little orang was given medicine three times a day. Dick noticed this. One day he stole the creosote bottle and gave the orang a dose. It killed the little orang.