Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/58

53 yield the relief usually accruing therefrom, and when the disease has progressed until the patient has become moribund they adopt a last and most disgusting remedy, which is deemed infallible in the most extreme cases.

''Mulierem ob juventutem firmitatemque corporis lectam sex vel plures viri in locum hand procul a castris remotum deducunt. Ibique omnes deinceps in illa libidinem explent. Tum mulier ad pedas surgere jubetur, quo facilius, id quod maribus excepit, effluere possit. Quod in vase collectum œgrotanti ebibendum praebent.''

The aborigines have unbounded faith in this truly horrible dose, and enumerate many, many instances wherein it has effected marvellous cures. We, however, have known of its having been administered in several cases without the remotest revivifying. result. It may be that this fluid is (in fact, some savants positively assert that it is so) the very essence of life, as well as containing the germs thereof, and that administering a draught of it to a patient slowly but surely dying from sheer exhaustion, consequent upon a long fit of illness (the illness itself having died out or been cured) might have the wonderful effect detailed so positively by the natives, but this is purely a question for physicians to consider.

They are singularly successful in the cure of snake poisoning. A native dying from snake-bite is an unknown occurrence, although there are great numbers of them bitten from time to time by these reptiles.

Their method of extracting the poison is by severely pinching the bitten part between the thumbs, after which they suck the wound for five minutes, or until a piece of