Some years ago, when I was in Kashmir, Northern India, some natives brought to me a young man on a stretcher who they said had fallen off a high rock and had broken his back and was dying. I soon found that he had only dislocated his shoulder and had got a few bruises, and seemed to think that he ought to die.
So I pulled off my shoe, sat down alongside him facing his head, put my heel in his arm-pit, got hold of his arm, and pulled with all my force till the bone jumped into its socket. The pain made him faint and his friends thought I really had killed him. But in a few minutes he recovered and found his arm was all right. Then they thought I must be no end of a doctor, so they sent round the country for all the sick to be brought in to be cured; and I had an awful time of it for the next two days. Cases of every kind of disease were carried in and I had scarcely any drugs with which to treat them, but I did the best I could, and I really believe that some of the poor creatures got better from simply believing that I was doing them a lot of good.
But most of them were ill from being dirty and letting their wounds get poisoned with filth; and many were ill from bad drainage, and from drinking foul water, and so on.
This I explained to the headmen of the villages, and I hope that I did some good for their future health.
At any rate, they were most grateful, and gave me a lot of help ever afterwards in getting good bear-hunting and in getting food, etc.
If I had not known a little doctoring I could have done nothing for these poor creatures.
MICROBES AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM.
Disease is carried about in the air and in water by tiny invisible insects called "germs" or "microbes," and you are very apt to breathe them in through the mouth or to get them in your drink or food and to swallow them, and then they breed disease inside you. If your blood is in really good order it generally does not matter, no harm results; but if your blood is out of order from weakness or constipation—that is, not going regularly to the "rear"—these microbes will very probably make you ill. A great point is, therefore, to abolish the microbes if possible. They like living in dark, damp, and dirty places. And they come from bad drains, old dustbins, and rotting flesh, etc.; in fact, generally where there is a bad smell. Therefore, keep your room, or your camp, and your clothes clean, dry, and as sunny as possible and well aired; and keep away from places that smell badly. Before your meals you should always wash your hands and finger-nails, for they are very apt to harbour microbes which have come from anything that you may have been handling in the day.
You frequently see notices in omnibuses and public places requesting you not to spit. The reason for this is that many people spit who have diseased lungs and from their spittle the microbes of their diseases get in the air and are breathed by healthy people into their lungs, and they become also diseased. Often you may have a disease in you for some years without knowing it and if you spit you are liable to communicate that disease to sound people; so you should not do it for their sake.
But you need not be afraid of diseases if you breathe through your nose and keep your blood in good order. It is always well on coming out of a crowded theatre, church or hall, to cough and blow your nose in order to get rid of microbes which you might have breathed in from other people in the crowd. One in every thirty of people that you meet has got the disease of consumption on him—and it is very catching. It comes very much from living in houses where the windows are kept always shut up. The best chance of getting cured of it if you get the disease is to sleep always out of doors.