RACE INFLUENCE AND DISEASE. 819 



" This will-power is utterly beyond the comprehension of us 

 Westerns, nor can doctors give the complaint a name ; sailors say 

 they die out of 'pure cussedness.' A Maori will count up the 

 days he has to live, inform his friends of the fact, and die up to 

 time ; he calmly lies down and dies without an effort." 



So much as regards the course of diseases ; now as to treat- 

 ment. The most successful means of treating such cases lies in 

 the use of alcohol, and so unaccustomed are most of these people 

 to its action that very small doses are required to produce a good 

 effect. It acts partly by a kind of intoxicating influence, putting 

 a little energy, or even " devilment/' into them. If administered 

 with cautious judgment, this support may be kept up until con- 

 valescence is fairly established, when with returning strength 

 they realize that destiny means them to survive ; here the ordi- 

 nary good effects of stimulant treatment are much enhanced by 

 the previous abstinence. 



It is well known how very excitable are these woolly-haired, 

 thick-lipped, flat-nosed races, the excitement representing the 

 opposite mental condition to the extreme languid depression of 

 which I have already spoken. For instance, at the great Mohur- 

 ram festival at Bombay, which I once witnessed, I noticed that all 

 the noise and mad dancing and boisterous fanaticism of the night 

 processions were manifested, not by the natives of India, who 

 were in a large majority, but by the negroes, their religious fer- 

 vor and the frenzy born of bhang conspiring to excite them. It is 

 this sensitiveness to rapid mental change that gives alcohol such 

 potent virtues with them in sickness. 



The natives of our Eastern empire, always excepting the fine 

 Sikh races, and those living near the northern frontier, than whom 

 I have never seen finer or braver specimens of mankind, are peo- 

 ple of poor stamina, and are easily prostrated. Timid and feeble, 

 they dread the pain of illness, and dislike the thought of death 

 mostly on account of the ordeal of the dying process. They are 

 therefore ready, nay, over-anxious for medical treatment, and are 

 fond of both liniments and physic. But in spite of this they fare 

 worse than the Europeans in all ordinary diseases ; symptoms 

 are more severe if less sthenic, prognosis is graver. Some expla- 

 nation may be found in their habitually poor diet, which leaves 

 little balance to the credit account in the nutrition of the tissues, 

 and consequently small resisting power to disease, but more, I 

 think, belongs to a want of " real grit " among them, a character- 

 istic racial failing. 



For example, a catarrhal condition of the alimentary canal will 

 pull such a patient down with alarming rapidity, out of all pro- 

 portion to the other symptoms, and indeed often to a fatal ending. 

 Stimulants in such cases are, of course, of great use, but not to 



