NATIVE DOCTORS. 45 by hundreds. This must have been small-pox, as many of the old people now have their faces pitted who suffered from the disease in childhood. The destruction of life was so great as to seriously diminish the tribes. The natives always represent that before this scourge arrived they were much more numerous. They say that so many died that they could not perform the usual funereal rites for the dead, but were compelled to bury them at once out of the way. I think that there must have been more than one visitation of this kind, judging from the age of those who are pock-marked.* The Narrinyeri attribute all diseases to witchcraft; consequently they employ as remedies certain countercharms. A man will mutter a sort of incantation over a diseased person for the purpose of dispelling the malignant influence from which he is suffering. There are amongst the natives certain men who claim to be doctors. Their method of treatment is partly by incantations, mutterings, tappings, and blowings; and parly by vigorous squeezing and kneading of the affected part. The doctor will kneel upon his patient, and squeeze him until he groans with the infliction. This is supposed to press out the wiwirri or disease. In cases of rheumatism they employ a sort of vapour bath which is prepared as follows: They make a fire, and heat stones, as if for cooking; then they make a sort of stage with sticks, and the patient is put thereon. Under the stage they put some of the hot stones, and, having first covered up the sick person with rugs, all but his head, and closed in the place where the hot stones are in the same way, they put wet water-weed on the stone, and the steam ascends under the rugs and envelopes the body of the patient. This method of cure is often found very effectual. But their methods of treating the sick often appear to us very absurd. I have felt amused and yet sorry when going to the
- Along the shore of Lake Alexandrina are some large mounds of earth. One of
these, at Pultowar, was opened last year, and found to contain scores of human skeletons arranged in rows. These were probably the victims of small-pox. Since I wrote the above I have been informed by one of the surgeons of the Adelaide Hospital that he has good reason to believe that the Aborigines often suffer from hydatids in the liver.
