Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/543

Rh The men who perform massage have by repeated practice acquired a fair knowledge of the normal condition of the abdomen, and of the more usual irregularities that take place there; and they have also, by practice in cutting up slaughtered animals, gained some knowledge of the anatomical relations of the parts. I have satisfied myself, by close observation of the procedure, that every part can be so fully separated from the others as to permit the whole to be plainly felt by the finger.

The skill attained in this art is particularly serviceable in midwifery cases, and makes up in a great measure for the lack of instruments. By it faults in the position of the fœtus are soon discovered, and much skill is displayed in remedying them. Even the white women are not afraid to call in the native midwives; and they can really be recommended without peril. As a rule they are women of the higher social ranks. The art of massage is handed down from mother to daughter, or to other relatives of the younger generation. Occasionally men practice at it.

Chest-diseases and pains in the extremities are treated by cupping and the moxa. Cupping is done with a horn. The skin having been scratched with a knife, the larger end of the horn, which has an opening at the point, is placed over the wound, and the operator sucks out the air and as much blood as he can, making of himself a kind of an artificial leech.

Moxas are preferred for diseases of the lungs and liver, and are applied in the simplest imaginable manner, by burning the end of a stick and putting the glowing coal upon the skin. Some ten or fifteen points are thus burned in succession, the scars of which afterward look like a kind of tattooing. When I first saw these scars on the breasts and backs of the Hereros, I thought they had been made for decoration, but was soon set right in the matter.

For internal remedies the people have a considerable number of simples. Every one knows of a few plants that are good as laxatives, emetics, sudorifics, or quietives. Among the heathen natives, supernatural help appears to be regarded as more important, and to be more approved. It is invoked, I observed, in two forms: One kind seems to be a traditional survival of the old patriarchal sacrifice; and the other embraces a kind of combination of secret knowledge with jugglery. A very obvious distinction is made between the two kinds of invocation, in the fact that some honorable member of the family is chosen to officiate in the former, while the latter is left to some wretched charlatan, or juggler, who sometimes has to suffer death as a penalty for his practice. In the former kind of invocation a beast is always slain, with whose meat and fat certain ceremonies are performed and formulas uttered over the patient, in a way that has been handed down by tradition.

One of the simpler features in the practice of the juggler-doctors