164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



II. PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON. 

 By HERBERT SPENCER. 



A LREADY, in Chapter II of the preceding part, have been 

 -^~ given illustrations of the general truth that in rude tribes it 

 is difficult to distinguish between the priest and the medicine- 

 man. Their respective functions are commonly fulfilled by the 

 same person. In addition to the instances there given, here are 

 some others. According to Humboldt, "the Caribbee marirris 

 are at once priests, jugglers, and physicians." Among the Tupis 

 " the Payes, as they were called, were at once quacks, jugglers, 

 and priests." Passing from South America to North, we read that 

 the "Carriers know little of medicinal herbs. Their priest or 

 magician is also the doctor ; " and, of the Dakotahs, Schoolcraft 

 says " The Priest is both prophet and doctor." In Asia we meet 

 with a kindred connection. In Southern India, the Kurumbas 

 act as doctors to the Badagas, and it is said of them " The Ku- 

 rumbas also officiate as priests at their marriages and deaths." 

 So is it among peoples further north. " Native doctors swarm in 

 Mongolia. . . . They are mostly lamas. There are a few laymen 

 who add medical practice to their other occupations, but the great 

 majority of doctors are priests." It is the same on the other great 

 continent. Reade tells us that in Equatorial Africa the fetish- 

 man is doctor, priest, and witch-finder ; and concerning the Joloffs 

 and Eggarahs, verifying statements are made by Mollien and by 

 Allen and Thomson. 



This evidence, re-enforcing evidence given in the preceding 

 part, and re-enforced by much more evidence given in the first 

 volume of this work, shows that union of the two functions is a 

 normal trait in early societies. 



The origin of this union lies in the fact before named that the 

 primitive priest and the primitive medicine-man both deal with 

 supposed supernatural beings; and the confusion arises in part 

 from the conceived characters of these ghosts and gods, some of 

 which are regarded as always malicious, and others of which, 

 though usually friendly, are regarded as liable to be made angry 

 and then to inflict evils. 



The medicine-man, dealing with malicious spirits, to which 

 diseases among other evils are ascribed by savages, subjects his 

 patients partly to natural agencies, but chiefly to one or other 

 method of exorcism. Says Keating of the Chippewas, " their 

 mode of treatment depends more upon the adoption of proper 



