Contagious diseases.
The frightful ravages made by smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and even the milder “children’s diseases,” such as measles and whooping-cough, often devastate whole towns and carry away the larger part of the children in a community. Smallpox, for instance, is so common in Korea that it is not considered worth while to try to escape it. It is caused by the visit of a very great and honored spirit, and while he remains the children are addressed in high sounding terms in honor of their great guest. When he is about ready to return to the south land, i.e., when the child has nearly recovered, a feast is made in honor of the visitor and he is provided with a wooden horse for his journey.
On an itinerating journey in Korea Dr. and Mrs. Underwood with their little boy stopped at a village called Pak Chun and had a rather disturbing experience.
Just before leaving, I saw a child quite naked, covered with smallpox pustules in full bloom, standing near our door. I asked one of the natives if there was much of that disease in the village at present. “In every house,” was the concise reply. “Why, there is none in the house we are in,” said I with confidence. “Oh, no, they took the child out the day you came in order to give you the room,” was the reassuring answer. We had eaten and slept in that infected little room, our blankets all spread out there, our trunks opened, everything we had exposed. We had even used their cooking utensils and spoons and bowls before our own packs had arrived. For ourselves we had been often exposed, and believed ourselves immune. Mr. Underwood had nursed a case of the most malignant type, and I had been in contact with it among my patients,—but our child! So we sent a swift messenger with a despatch to the nearest telegraph station, twenty-four hours away, to Dr. Wells, in Pyeng Yang. He at once put a tube of virus into the hands of a speedy runner, who arrived with it a week later.
We found the country full of smallpox, measles, and whooping-cough, and added to our smallpox experience an exactly similar one with measles.[12]
The loud death wail goes up from a village home in Persia where a little life has been snatched away by diphtheria. Instantly every mother in the village seizes her baby and the next-to-the-youngest toddles after, and all gather in the family room of the little mud home, where the body lies, and show their sympathy by adding their voices to the general din. Fortunately custom decrees that burial take place as speedily as possible, but the mischief has already been done, and echoes of the death wail are heard from far and near.
Call over the roll of physicians of your own Board. A wonderful report it would be if each could respond and give the number of epidemics through which he or she has worked unflinchingly, bringing hope and comfort and life to hundreds and thousands stricken down not only by the diseases already mentioned but by typhus, cholera, and plague. Call the roll of the countries where no law demands isolation or precautions of any kind, and one after another would respond, if it could, in terms of loving gratitude to missionaries who have introduced or freely used vaccine, anti-toxin, cholera serum, and other products of medical science. Many lands are now awaking to the possibility and desirability of using preventive measures, and vaccination, for instance, is very prevalent in China. It is good to hear Dr. Estella Perkins of China say, after an epidemic of scarlet fever, “I must say, however, that these young mothers have been very obedient to orders. I know by the number of dispensary cases of sequelae in patients I did not treat, that the careful following of directions by the mothers of my children must have saved half of them from bad results of the disease. It is a comfort to be able to do something more than prescribe a little medicine.”
Cruel treatment of sick children.
We spoke above of the ignorance, cruelty, superstition, and avarice that compose so largely the medical practice of the Orient. Disease is very frequently considered the work of an evil spirit which must either be appeased by offerings or driven out by harsh and cruel treatment. And so the tender little bodies are branded with hot irons, pierced by needles, or burned with rags dipped in oil and set on fire. While the little one suffers, a witch doctor may be called in to use his incantations, or the mother may take a little rag from some article of the child’s clothing and tie it to a sacred tree already covered with hundreds of these rags, or the string of beads or the entrails of a beast are consulted to see if the omen is favorable for administering medicine. Let me give just one case from Central Africa which can be duplicated many times over from the records of other lands.
As an example let me give the case of a lad who was suffering from tuberculosis. He had consulted the witch doctor, and after having paid his fee was told that he had been poisoned. Whereupon the “surgeon” drew his knife out from his belt and made a number of small incisions. He then declared he could see the poison inside the youth, and took it away. But the lad was not cured, and so came down to give the European’s wisdom a trial.[13]
Christian help for sick children.