Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/541

Rh of the man appearing to gesticulate with his bones. A woman lived at our station whose feet had been barbarously cut off in some war several years before, so that her captors might more easily get off the iron ornament which the Herero women wear on their ankles. Although the woman had to lie helpless for a long time, her wounds eventually healed up, and now she has been hopping around on her knees for thirty years.

We soon remarked, however, when the rains fell, a genius epidemicus coming over the country and demanding offerings. We could also see how those of the natives who lived on the ridges were much less troubled by illness than those whose houses were situated on the moister alluvial ground and in the river-bottoms. Those who have once had fever are more readily exposed to attack than those who have never been ill. My wife, who appeared to have wholly recovered from a recent illness, only required a stay of ten minutes in a river-bottom, where I and several other persons received no injury, to be put in bed for months. The influence of malaria is manifested in many persons in other ways than by fever-and-ague. Thus, I never had that disease; but, when others of the family had fever, I had rheumatic pains in my joints, and I knew of other persons who were similarly affected. Occasionally a severe and almost universal influenza would prevail instead of the fever; and, while few died from it, it was very painful, and sometimes laid entire households low, so that no one was left to attend to the daily duties.

One of the most prevalent diseases is a running inflammation of the eyes, which few natives escape suffering from one or more times during their lives. Europeans also are usually attacked by it, and it was a great wonder to the natives that I and my family escaped it. We avoided it by the observance of the most scrupulous cleanliness and the use of prophylactics.

Venereal disorders are quite widely spread, but the Hereros have no name of their own for them, and call them the "Hottentot disease."

A peculiar skin-disease, called otiyndimba, causes much inconvenience. It is connected with the hot weather, and is characterized by little sores that appear upon different parts of the body, lasting for two or three weeks, to be succeeded by others till the cold weather. They develop pus, in quantity which appears to be very scanty in proportion to the pain they cause, and leave no scar. The only disturbance they produce in the general system appears to be to make the sufferer very uncomfortable.

Two cases of snake-bites were brought to me, one of which was without consequences, while the other only resulted in a trifling sore. Yet cattle are frequently killed by snakes. I had several cases of men who had been spit in the eyes by the spitting-snake, or ongoroka. Some persons regard this serpent as a myth; but I have conversed,