Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/67

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HE earliest explanation of disease, corresponding to the ideas of nature which first impressed the dawning human consciousness, was that the usual working of the body had been upset by the entrance into it of an evil spirit. This spirit proceeded to disturb the "ease" of the body of the sick man, causing it to reject and eject food, racking it with pain, and burning it with the slow fire of fever, and even talking through its lips in incoherent or mysterious utterances. So satisfactory an explanation did this seem that, in modified form, it has a hold with the more superstitious even in the present day.

Such being the cause for his sufferings, the primitive man was prompt to see that the cure should be the driving out of the evil spirit which had taken up its abode in the body, by the most appropriate methods. The medicine man of the tribe assumed a superior knowledge in such affairs and took upon himself the responsibility of dealing with these unseen powers. Working upon the reasonable assumption that what appealed to human senses must also appeal to the dwellers in the spirit realm, that what was agreeable or disagreeable to one must be agreeable or disagreeable to the other, this healer proceeded to make it very unpleasant for the tormentor of the sick man by appearing before him in his most hideous garb, by the repetition of frightful cries and thunderous thumpings upon his tom-tom, while draughts made of the most vile and disgusting substances were poured down the throat of the victim in the hope that the spirit would be induced to let go his hold and depart. It was the most logical treatment imaginable, and it seemed so proved by the fact that the sick man very often recovered. Nor did the primitive mind stop at the mere driving out of the source of disease, but followed up its success in this direction by equally rational attempts at prevention by the wearing of some magic object to keep away the demon of sickness in the future.

As men became more observant and thoughtful, it became apparent that certain physical conditions seemed to have much to do with the presence of sickness. While the spirit realm might be finally responsible for the singling out of the sufferer, yet extremes of heat and cold, dampness, lack of food, and some other agencies were seen to be get-atablegettable [sic] causes. Moreover, it was discovered, more or less accidentally, that the application of heat and cold, bathing, rubbing, and the use of