From these affections children pine
away and die, without showing any external marks of disease. Their
death is attributed to witchcraft, and any querulous old woman, who
has been in the habit of murmuring at slights and ill treatment in
the neighbourhood, is immediately set down as the cause. Men who
practise medicine among them are very commonly supposed to be at the
same time wizards. Seeking to inspire confidence in their
prescriptions by repeating prayers and incantations over the patient,
or over the medicine they give him, they make him believe that they
derive aid from supernatural power; and the patient concludes that
those who can command these powers to cure can, if they will, command
them to destroy. He and his friends believe that the man who can
command these powers to cure one individual can command them to cure
any other; and, if he does not do so, they believe that it arises
from a desire to destroy the patient. I have, in these territories,
known a great many instances of medical practitioners having been put
to death for not curing young people for whom they were required to
prescribe.
Pages:
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196