I came across a minor operation. A man had broken the ulna of the
left arm. The native doctor got a piece - a very nice piece - of
bamboo, drove it in through the muscles and integuments from the
wrist to the elbow, then encased the limb in plantain leaves, and
bound it round, tightly and neatly, needless to say with tie-tie.
The arm and hand when I saw it, some six or seven months after the
operation, was quite useless, and was withering away.
Many of their methods, however, are better. The Dualla medicos are
truly great on poultices for extracting foreign substances, such as
bits of iron cooking-pot - a very frequent form of foreign substance
in a man out here, owing to their being generally used as bullets.
Almost incredible stories are told by black and white of the
efficacy of these poultices; one case I heard from a reliable source
of a man who had been shot with fragments of iron pot in the thigh.
The white doctor extracted several pieces and said he had got all
out, but the man still went on suffering, and could not walk, so, at
his request, a native doctor was called in, and he applied his
poultice. In a few minutes he removed it, and on its face were two
pieces of jagged iron pot. Probably they had been in the poultice
when it was applied, anyhow the patient recovered rapidly.
Baths accompanied by massage are much esteemed.
