BY JOHN MACPHERSON. 647 



growth— described intpv alios by Drs. Milne Robertson* and W. 

 Wyatt.t 



Obstetrics in Ngarrabul were quite simple. The female rela- 

 tives, sister, mother or grandmother, looked after the patient and 

 her baby. The men knew but little about such matters, and held 

 aloof. 



8uch, then, was the practice of medicine and surgery among 

 these primitive people. Drunkenness, with its attendant evils, 

 exposure to wet and the cold of night, tubercle, hydatids, venereal 

 disease, the diminished bodily vigour resulting from occupying and 

 sleeping in damp, dark and ill-ventilated hovels, incident upon 

 their civilisation, have all combined to destroy the tribes, and 

 soon the few remnants will be gathered to their fathers and we 

 shall know them no more. 



* Report on certain Customs of the Aborigines of Western Australia, p. 6. 

 t Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes in ' Native Tribes of South Austra- 

 lia,' p. 163. 



