amongst Europeans. A native will sometimes begin to mope. He may have a slight cold, or there may he nothing in his appearance to indicate any kind of sickness, but he sits over the fire, and will not move if he can help it. He does not complain, but he appears to be ill notwithstanding. This may continue for as long as six weeks. As soon as the lungs are attacked—and, sooner or later, in all such cases, the lungs begin to exhibit signs of disease—the patient rapidly sinks and dies. Recoveries, he says, under treatment by Europeans at even an early stage of the disorder are not common. Sometimes, but rarely, a black will recover without medical treatment of any kind.
The Right Reverend Dr. Rosendo Salvado, Bishop of Port Victoria, in a most interesting and valuable report, addressed to the Honorable the Colonial Secretary of West Australia, makes mention of a case not very dissimilar to that just described. He says:—"A strong and healthy young native, who never in his life knew what strong liquors or European vices were, is admitted into a private house, mission, or establishment; for some time he goes on well, gay and full of life; but in a few months, or perhaps after a couple of years, a fatal melancholy takes possession of him. Being asked what is the matter with him, he answers, 'Nothing!' 'Do you feel sick?' 'No, sir.' 'Do you suffer any pain?' 'No, sir.' 'Why are you not so cheerful as before?' 'I do not know.' He takes his meals as regularly as ever, he has no fever, yet he daily and almost at sight loses his flesh, strength, and health. What is the technical name of such a disease? Perhaps consumption, perhaps liver complaint. Let it be so; but is there no remedy for such diseases? Are there no preventives of their causes? Yes, there are; but, nevertheless, that native died shortly after."
The good bishop consulted several medical gentlemen respecting the maladies which afflict the natives, but he could get no satisfactory information as to their origin or the best mode of treatment.
One doctor confessed that, as a general rule, every time he had taken any sick native under his especial care, he succeeded only, he regretted to say, in killing him the sooner. Dr. Salvado has observed that when a native has been under treatment by a medical man in a hospital or a private house, he has made no improvement, but when consigned to the care of his friends and taken to the bush, he has rapidly recovered.
It is undoubtedly true that the modes of treatment adopted by Europeans are not, as a rule, successful, if the black be at all uuder the influence of his own people. In the first place, there is the feeling of loneliness; he is separated from his companions, and his spirits droop. Then the old superstitions are strong upon him. His hair, perhaps, has been cut, his old clothes taken away from him, and with them probably some valued possession on which his heart is set. He fears the white man, dreads his medicines, and shrinks from the outward applications which may, for aught he knows, be possessed of secret properties that will cause his destruction. He sighs for a return to his old friends and his old pursuits; and it is highly probable that he neglects every precaution that his medical attendant has enjoined as necessary for his recovery. The European doctor, indeed, is always at a great disadvantage when dealing
