THE MEDICAL PRACTICE OF SAVAGES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 13

THE MEDICAL PRACTICE OF SAVAGES

On Ist February, 1902, the “Lancet published a long statement from Dr O'Sullivan Beare, his Majesty’s viceconsul at Bemba, telling how a remedy for blackwater fever had been found at last—but not bv European science. When Dr Beare took up his duties on the Coast that fell disease was "response for more deaths and more invalid; ing home than all others combined. And the doctors were helpless. After describing the various modes of treatment which they had used, Dr Beare added. "Iu a word, among the official preparations there appeared to be none on which reliance could be placed, whether employed singly or m combination. In these distressing he heard from an intelligent Arab that the natives of some inland district possessed a oure, and at the first oppor-

tunity he proceeded thither. "Medicine men" generally refuse to communicate their secrets, but in this instance, as it seems, they made no difficulty. The remedy proved to be a decoction from the root of a certain species of cassia, Which has been named C. Beareana. The effect is rapid as complete. Pere 0., of the Roman Catholic Mission, tried the first experiment on a German “in the last extremity"; he was out of danger in 48 hours, and quite himself m six days. Pere E. tested the new drug on a Sister to whom the last sacraments had been administered, and it was equally successful. Six white patients and some thirty natives were cured without a single failure. After this remarkable experience we are free to hope that in Zanzibar, at any rate, English doctors will not wholly ignore the methods of their savage colleagues. But the climate does not foster enterprise nor lend itself to research, and the white man's instinct revolts against the supposition that he has anything to learn in the way of scienca from the black. All the training and associations of the profession are hostile. Besides, the medical practice of barbarians is an established joke. Readers look for sport when they come across an instance in a traveller's record, and they generally find it, though perhaps of the sort which is akin to disgust or horror. It might be thought that the people themselves in many lands take much the same view. .Noise is an essential part of the treatment, as a rule. Joseph Thomson thought he was describing a unique eccentricity when he told, on ; his first journey, how all the adult population of a village thumped big drums at arms’ length, and quaffed pots of beer alternately the day through, whilst the medicine men doctored a poor-, creature propped against a tree. To suppose such treatment a local form of insanity was natural; but Thomson soon, learned his error. Sometimes the proceedings are intentionally droll, as in the Far East. Rajah Brooke says that Dyaks crowd to the hut of a sick person just as we do to a theatre when an at11active piece is on. A band is engaged; if the patient’s friends be rich, eminent performers may be brought from a distance at great expense. Men and women of local renown for drollery, arrayed in grotesque costumes, which they change from time to time, go through a comic rehearsal of the sick person's daily-em-ployments when well. Other favourites of the public grimace, spin their heads round, protrude their eyes and distort their -features. In fact, the Rajah declares, a neighbour’s illness—that is, the process of cure —makes a popular entertainment, for which visitors put on their best clothes and enjoy themselves accordingly. In particular, these are recognised occasions for flirting, matchmaking, and amorous enterprise. The traveller who sees such absurd barbarities is too much occupied with the spectacle, perhaps, to. give more than a glance at the invalid. The incongruity of the scene absorbs him. But those who incline to believe that the actions _of men, in a case so ordinary and so important as the healing of the sick, must surely be guided by reasoning and experience, may suspect that even such eccentricities may be explained when they prove to be universal. Jesuit missionaries gave just the same report of the practice of the Hurons in Canada, if a warrior fell ill, the whole clan visited him, disguised as bears, rattling pieces of dry bark and knocking- sticks together. Then they whooped and danced for hours. Meantime the medicine nan shook his patient, bit, pinched, roar«d in his ears, and drummed upon a ortoise shell, until in due course he extracted a bit of wood or something, the cause of the disease. but we know as a fact that these people had valuable remedies. Jacquea Carter tells how a friendly Indian pointed out to him a tree when very nearly al! his crew had died of scurvy. An infusion of its leaves saved the rest. So the yellow fever ceased on Drake’s vessels, as if by magic, when the Caribs of Dominica gave him “certain herbs, known to them. It is likely that the Huron doctors were using matter of fact remedies all the while they played their tricks; but the jesuits, shocked and disgusted, did not notice that. As for the diumming, howling, dancing, those were the special delights of the sick man while in health, and his friends might naturally suppose that they would cheer him up when ill. Perhaps they were not wrong. The object avowed is to scare away evil spirits; but distracting or diverting the sufferer would be an excellent purpose also. The same explanation may apply to the comic jerformances. We begin to understand that imagination has great influence over disease; it is not improbable that the naked races have long been familiar with that as with other secrets of psychology. The most bestial of human stocks have a minute acquaintance with herbs and other substances, wholesome or noxious. So widespread is this knowledge, and so unexpected some of its manifestations, that grave observers have supposed it instinctive with primitive man—one of the attributes which are lost in the course of civilisation. Pruna f&cid therefore it might be assumed that after the experience of countless generations aboriginal peoples generally have learned how to treat such maladies as are common among them. Many travellers report that it is so, nnd official documents bear testimony from time to time that such or such a tribe possesses a secret cure for some disease. For instance, a blue book issued by the Cap* Government in 1885 states positively, on. the evidence of magistrates, missionaries and traders, that the Bantu medicine men of certain districts have for cancer. Doctors like (YSullivan Beare, willing to admit that European science can learn from a naked savage, are very uncommon. And th.Bre IS great difficulty in the way of all research—the native professor can seldom be tempted or persuaded to reveal his methods. Perhaps this reluctance grows stronger as the competition of white rivals becomes more pressing.—* Outlook.”