with the natives; and though medical men are in Victoria most zealous and painstaking at all the Aboriginal Stations, they are thwarted continually by the people for whose benefit they use their utmost skill. A blackfellow, sent to a hospital for treatment, has informed me confidentially that he was being poisoned. Another has said, "Doctor no good," and some have shown the strongest predilection for quack medicines. They seem to know instinctively what is genuine and what is not; and they cling as strongly to the latter as any of the Europeans. They seem, too, to have the same regard and respect for irregular practitioners as the whites; and some will greedily take medicine from the hands of a person who pretends to a knowledge of physic when they will actually refuse the draught that medical skill has made ready for their cure.
They have in their natural state a firm belief in the methods of cure adopted by their own doctors. Mr. Wilhelmi says that amongst the diseases which afflict them most often are "sores, diarrhœa, colds, and headache. For removing these, or partially curing them for the time, they apply outward remedies, some of which appear to be effective. The chief ones are rubbing, pressing, and treading even upon the afflicted parts of the body, in particular the belly and the back; tightening of the belt, and also of the band which they usually wear round the head; bandaging the diseased part; sprinkling or washing it with cold water in case of fever or inflammation. Sores or wounds are generally left to take their course, or the utmost done is to tie something tight round them, or, if inflammation has ensued, to sprinkle cold water upon them. Bleeding of the lower arm they apply in cases of headache. A most extraordinary remedy against headache I saw applied in 1849, in the case of a woman, who submitted to having her head so cut up by another woman with pieces of broken glass that the blood actually dropped through her thick bushy hair. The cure by bleeding is confined to the males only, and is frequently applied during the hot season. They do not allow the blood to run on the ground, but upon the body of some other man, directing the arm in such a manner that the stream forms a number of small cross lines, in consequence of which the body assumes the appearance of being covered with a tight-fitting network of very small meshes. The object of the custom partly is, as stated above, to act as a cure for headache and inflammation, and partly also to promote the growth of the young people, and to preserve the strength and vigor of the aged ones. . . . . . The women may be present at the operation of bleeding. Whenever engaged in this or certain other operations, the Witarna is put in motion, to prevent young unmarried people from unwittingly surprising them. The natives have also their regular doctors, called Mintapas, who pretend to be able to remove, by sucking, sickness out of the body. They put their lips to the pit of the stomach in case of general disease, and to the suffering part when confined to any fixed spot, and, after having sucked for some time, pull out of their mouths a small piece of wood or bone, pretending that this is the body of the disease, which had been communicated by some evil-disposed person, and now been extracted by them. So superstitious are these ignorant children of Nature, that they have the fullest faith in these absurdities, and passionately
