360 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



us, loath to relinquish at the last the scant comfort of human com- 

 panionship. 



In the light of the lore which had been imparted to me many 

 years ago by my medical teachers here at Yale, I reckoned him 

 the victim of malaria ; and shortly, in fact, quinine had cured 

 him. The demon was exorcised, the spirit ceased to whisper, the 

 sun was again his friend, and the winds began anew to breathe 

 to him their wonted biddings to the chase. The grateful soul, 

 now eager to be away, was urgent that I should visit his people, 

 for he was fain to celebrate the facility of the white medicine 

 man who could banish evil spirits without rattle, dance, or chant. 

 And so I went. Eighty miles across the desert from any settle- 

 ment, down at the bottom of a rock-walled chasm which leads 

 into the Grand Canon of the Colorado, and whose sides tower 

 sheer half a mile, these brown-painted folks have lived alone and 

 almost forgotten since long before the Spanish pioneers came 

 hither for God and gold some centuries ago. 



At the time of my visit several persons in the tribe were ill, 

 and a celebrated medicine man had been summoned from afar in 

 council over the stricken ones. After long and repeated confer- 

 ences, my dark medical brothers consented to lay aside cherished 

 forms of professional etiquette, and permitted me to take a place 

 in the grave circle which at midnight crouched about a small 

 fire built in the open, near which lay, half naked, the group of 

 patients. One of these was clearly the prey of consumption ; one 

 was shivering with malarial poisoning ; one was a croupy child ; 

 one I judged to have partaken unwisely and too much of spoiled 

 jerked meat ; and one was the victim of old age. I have not time 

 to picture for you, as I should like to do, the weird scene which 

 was enacted there from midnight until dawn, night after night. 

 A low rhythmic chant rising and falling to the time of a rattled 

 gourd ; slow passes of the hands over the prostrate bodies, which 

 now and again were blown upon from the pursed lips of the 

 painted ^sculapius, who now crouched crooning beside his 

 charges, now danced furiously about them, while at frequent 

 intervals wild yells from the attending circle woke hideous 

 echoes from the cliffs. I will not dwell upon the sequels of this 

 adventure, but remind you only that the conceptions of disease 

 which these people foster, and the practices which they adopt to 

 free the body from what is to them a definite possession by some 

 evil thing, are essentially those which were prevalent ages ago, 

 and whose significance we glean so toilsomely to-day out of the 

 misty and broken records of the past. 



I have lingered in story on the threshold of this address, be- 

 cause I wish to emphasize the fact that in this country and to-day 

 in all countries of the world, for that matter a large propor- 



