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.
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