Those Doctors Who Have Inherited Their Profession As An Heirloom
From Their Fathers And Grandfathers Generally Possess Some Valuable Knowledge,
The result of long and close observation; but if a man can not say
that the medical art is in
His family, he may be considered a quack.
With the regular practitioners I always remained on the best terms,
by refraining from appearing to doubt their skill in the presence of
their patients. Any explanation in private was thankfully received by them,
and wrong treatment changed into something more reasonable
with cordial good-will, if no one but the doctor and myself
were present at the conversation. English medicines were eagerly
asked for and accepted by all; and we always found medical knowledge
an important aid in convincing the people that we were really anxious
for their welfare. We can not accuse them of ingratitude;
in fact, we shall remember the kindness of the Bakwains to us
as long as we live.
The surgical knowledge of the native doctors is rather at a low ebb.
No one ever attempted to remove a tumor except by external applications.
Those with which the natives are chiefly troubled are
fatty and fibrous tumors; and as they all have the `vis medicatrix naturae'
in remarkable activity, I safely removed an immense number.
In illustration of their want of surgical knowledge may be mentioned
the case of a man who had a tumor as large as a child's head.
This was situated on the nape of his neck, and prevented his walking straight.
He applied to his chief, and he got some famous strange doctor
from the East Coast to cure him. He and his assistants
attempted to dissolve it by kindling on it a little fire
made of a few small pieces of medicinal roots. I removed it for him,
and he always walked with his head much more erect than he needed to do
ever afterward. Both men and women submit to an operation without wincing,
or any of that shouting which caused young students to faint
in the operating theatre before the introduction of chloroform.
The women pride themselves on their ability to bear pain. A mother will
address her little girl, from whose foot a thorn is to be extracted, with,
"Now, ma, you are a woman; a woman does not cry." A man scorns to shed tears.
When we were passing one of the deep wells in the Kalahari,
a boy, the son of an aged father, had been drowned in it
while playing on its brink. When all hope was gone, the father uttered
an exceedingly great and bitter cry. It was sorrow without hope.
This was the only instance I ever met with of a man weeping in this country.
Their ideas on obstetrics are equally unscientific, and a medical man
going near a woman at her confinement appeared to them more out of place
than a female medical student appears to us in a dissecting-room.
A case of twins, however, happening, and the ointment
of all the doctors of the town proving utterly insufficient
to effect the relief which a few seconds of English art afforded,
the prejudice vanished at once.
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