Page:Pearl of Asia (Child JT, 1892).pdf/333

Rh doctor brush off the poison from the wound with a handful of meyom leaves seven times, when the form of incantation must be rehearsed over the three bottles. Then if the patient can eat betel he will get well.

Superstition has invested the whole subject of native midwifery with the most silly and ridiculous notions, and some very pernicions and cruel. In accordance with the teachings of Buddhism, the Siamese believe that there never have been any new creations of animal or intelligent beings, hence that all living creatures that ever have been, or ever will be born, are simply and only transmigrations from previous states of existence — that all mere animal beings, have once been in a higher state in some previous life, in the form of men or women on earth, or as angels in heaven or devils in hell, and that mankind have all transmigrated to their present state either from some of the many heavenly worlds, or from some of the many infernal abodes.

The native books on midwifery make an earnest business of teaching parents how they may know whence their new-born infants have come, and soberly state certain signs by which they may know whether their expected child is to be a son or daughter.

Their books say that there is great choice to be had between the different days of the week on which a child shall be born — Wednesdays and Thursdays being regarded as more favorable than any other day for the development of vigorous constitutions and bright intellects. Children born on Sundays are thought to be peculiarly liable to be careless and reckless all their days.

Besides these days of every week, they pay much