still remains a belief in inherited skill and traditional "cures." And, as might be expected, we found that this obtains the more firmly the more difficult it is to get proper medical attendance.
A witness from the remote island of Rona (Skye), which a doctor rarely visits, was particularly interesting in a description in Gaelic of some of the various "cures" which in default or disregard of medical advice are frequently resorted to. He told, for example, of a "cure" recently applied in the case of an epileptic. A black cock was buried alive beneath the spot where the patient had had the first attack of epilepsy. He also described the successful treatment of a woman suffering from the tinneas an righ ("king's evil," i.e. bone or gland tuberculosis) by a seventh son to whom she had gone all the way to the island of Scalpay, Harris.
Referring to the prevalence of this form of treatment Dr. Tolmie, South Harris, says:—"When they have bone disease they use the old remedies. There was a man suffering from keratitis and he was not getting well. It is a difficult disease to cure in an old person. He was not getting on, and I had to go over one very wild day to see him, and when I arrived he was away from home—it was a fearful day—and he had to drive nine miles and walk about another six to an old lady at Licisto. The old lady made up some rhyme, and mixed some grasses with water and sand, and sung. He came back and said he was a little better. The seventh son is supposed to be able to cure such diseases. I know of one case of a person who had a carbuncle on the back of his neck, and it did not heal, and he got a seventh son to come to his house, and every night for a long time he put cold water on it and a sixpence round his neck." It is in such a field of ignorant faith that the "skilly" woman can practise all her arts at will and with greatest danger when she is most in demand—and that is, in cases of maternity."
Paragraph 57 reads:—"The persistence of the traditional "cures" and superstitious practices in remote districts referred to in par. 21 is undoubtedly due largely to the want of medical attendance."
David Rorie, M.D.
