The aborigines have their herbs—a few, not many. They have their emetics and laxatives, astringents and emollients—all of which are proffered to the suffering without fee or reward. The “Indian teas,” “Indian balsams,” and other Indian “cure-alls”—the virtues of which it sometimes takes columns of the daily journals to chronicle—are not theirs. To the white man is left this species of deception.[88]
Mr. E. Palmer says that there is a tribe of Australian aborigines, called “Kalkadoona,” adjoining the Mygoodano tribe of the Cloncurry, who practise certain surgical operations at their Bora initiations of youths. They operate on the urethra with flint knives. The same custom can be traced from the Cloncurry River to the Great Australian Bight in the south. The females are in some of the south-western tribes operated on in some manner to prevent conception. It is supposed that the ovary is taken out, as in the operation of spaying.[89]
Such operations are sometimes performed with a mussel-shell.
Sir John Lubbock says of the Society Islanders that “they had no knowledge of medicine as distinct from witchcraft; but some wonderful stories are told of their skill in surgery. I will give perhaps the most extraordinary. ‘It is related,’ says Mr. Ellis, ‘although,’ he adds with perfect gravity, ‘I confess I can scarcely believe it, that on some occasions, when the brain has been injured as well as the bone, they have opened the skull, taken out the injured portion of the brain, and, having a pig ready, have killed it, taken out the pig’s brains, put them in the man’s head and covered them up.’”[90]
Massage in one form or another has been practised from immemorial ages by all nations. Captain Cook tells us, in his narrative of the people of Otaheite, New Holland, and other parts of Oceania, that they practise massage in a way very similar to that which is employed by more civilized nations. For the relief of muscular fatigue they resort to a process which they call toogi-toogi, or light percussion regularly applied for a long time. They also employ kneading and friction under the names of Miti and Fota. African travellers inform us that the medicine-men use these processes for the relief of injuries to the joints, fractures, and pain of the muscles. Our word shampooing is said to have been derived from the Hindu term chamboning. Dr. N. B. Emerson, in 1870, gave an account of the lomi-lomi of the Sandwich Islanders. He says that, “when footsore and weary in every muscle, so that no position affords rest, and sleep cannot be obtained, these manipulations relieve the stiffness and soothe to sleep, so that the unpleasant effects of excessive exercise are not felt the next day, but an unwonted suppleness of joint and muscle comes instead.”[91]
When we receive a blow or strike our bodies against a hard substance, we instinctively rub the affected part. This is one of the simplest and most effectual examples of natural surgery. When the emollient properties of oil were discovered, rubbing with oil, or inunction, was practised. The use of oil for this purpose in the East is extremely ancient. Amongst the Greeks there was a class of rubbers who anointed the bodies of the athletes. The oil was very thoroughly rubbed in, so that the pores of the skin were closed and the profuse perspiration thereby prevented. After the contest the athlete was subjected to massage with oil, so as to restore the tone of the strained muscles. These aliptae came to be recognised as a sort of medical trainers. A similar class of slaves attended their masters in the Roman baths, and they were also possessed of a certain kind of medical knowledge.
Discussing the origin of the operation of trepanning, Sprengel says that “nothing is more instructive, in the history of human knowledge, than to go back to the origin, or the clumsy rough sketch of the discoveries to which man was conducted by accident or reflection, and to follow the successive improvements which his methods and his instruments undergo.”[92] The name of the inventor of this operation is lost in the night of time. Hippocrates gives us the first account of trepanning in his treatise on Wounds of the Head. We know, however, that it was performed long before his time. Dr. Handerson, the translator of Baas’ History of Medicine, says that human skulls of the neolithic period have been discovered which bear evidences of trepanning.[93]
The operation of cutting for the stone, like many other of the most difficult operations of surgery, was for a long time given over to ignorant persons who make a speciality of it. Sprengel attributes this injurious custom to the ridiculous pride of the properly instructed doctors, who disdained to undertake operations which could be successfully performed by laymen.[94]
The Bafiotes, on the coast of South Guinea, practise cupping. They make incisions in the skin, and place horns over the wounds, and then suck out the air, withdrawing the blood by these means.[95]
“Felkin saw a case of the Cæsarean operation in Central Africa performed by a man. At one stroke an incision was made through both the abdominal walls and the uterus; the opening in the latter organ was then enlarged, the hæmorrhage checked by the actual cautery, and the child removed. While an assistant compressed the abdomen, the operator then removed the placenta. The bleeding from the abdominal walls was then checked. No sutures were placed in the walls of the uterus, but the abdominal parietes were fastened together by seven figure-of-eight sutures, formed with polished iron needles and threads of bark. The wound was then dressed with a paste prepared from various roots, the woman placed quietly upon her abdomen, in order to favour perfect drainage, and the task of this African Spencer Wells was finished. It appears that the patient was first rendered half unconscious by banana wine. One hour after the operation the patient was doing well, and her temperature never rose above 101° F., nor her pulse above 108. On the eleventh day the wound was completely healed, and the woman apparently as well as usual.”[96]