Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/82

 JO Collectanea.

was changed once a week ; but when ill, nothing would induce the mother to take off or change the child's clothing. With fever cases, the higher the fever, the more clothing or rugs are piled on (pp. 163-164).

" I saw a girl," says Dr. Kendal Franks elsewhere, " in Tent No. 10 1 in camp at Middelburg, with Dr. Spencer. The girl was suffering from renal dropsy, supposed to be due to a chill when convalescing from enteric fever. She was about eighteen years old. From her hips down to her feet she was wrapped up in a poultice made of horse-dung, which her mother, who was present, explained was taking the sweUing down from her face." (Middel- burg Camp, p. 333.)

Dr. Kendal Franks also notes that the Boers prepare the fioors of their tents by smearing them with cow-dung, as they are accus- tomed to do in their own houses. (Balmoral Camp, p. 324.)

In the camp at Krugersdorp, two cases of pneumonia were found when admitted to have been freely smeared with ordinary green house-paint, and there is no doubt that death was due to arsenical poisoning (p. 250).

In another report from Dr. Franks on the Refugee Camps at Krugersdorp, Potchefstroom, and Klerksdorp, he says : "A recent remedy among the Boers, no matter what is the ailment, is to paint the part affected with green paint. Three children suffer- ing from a complaint which I was unable to ascertain were painted all over with green paint, with the exception of the face. All three of the children died from acute arsenical poisoning. Another child, aged two, was given by its mother at the same time patent medicines, comprising Hoffman's drops, containing ether; Essenz dulcis, containing opium; Red powder, containing tartar emetic ; Jamaica ginger and ' Dutch drops,' composition unknown." Tinned sardines he, found were given to another child, aged four months, instead of milk (p. 193).

Dr. G. S. Woodroffe says that in one instance, when he had prescribed for a child, the next morning the mother took it to another doctor, who also prescribed for it. The next morning she called in yet another. This doctor refused to prescribe. She was then giving the child the medicines alternately which had been prescribed by the first two doctors, and had the third pre- scribed the child would have been taking medicines prescribed by three doctors all at once. " The most famous ' quack ' doctor