PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON. 187 



11 the nature and seat of the malady, and proceeds to dose the patient, 

 whom he also manipulates about the part afflicted until he succeeds 

 in extracting the cause of the sickness, which he exhibits in triumph. 

 This is generally a spider, a toad, or some other reptile which he has 

 had carefully concealed about his person.&quot; 



Speaking of the Tahitian doctors, who are &quot; almost in 

 variably priests or sorcerers,&quot; Ellis says that in cases of sick 

 ness they received fees, parts of which were supposed to 

 belong to the gods: the supposition being that the gods 

 who had caused the diseases must be propitiated by presents. 

 A more advanced people exhibit a kindred union of ideas. 

 Says Gilmour 



&quot;Mongols seldom separate medicine and prayers, and a clerical doc 

 tor has the advantage over a layman in that he can attend personally 

 to both departments, administering drugs on the one hand and per 

 forming religious ceremonies on the other.&quot; 



Hence the medical function of the priest. When not caused 

 by angry gods diseases are believed to be caused by indwell 

 ing demons, who have either to be driven out by making 

 the body an intolerable residence, or have to be expelled by 

 superior spirits who are invoked. 



But there is often a simultaneous use of natural and super 

 natural means, apparently implying that the primitive 

 medicine-man, in so far as he uses remedies acting physi 

 cally or chemically, foreshadows the physician ; yet the ap 

 parent relationship is illusive, for those which we distinguish 

 as natural remedies are not so distinguished by him. In the 

 first volume ( 177-8) it was shown that powerful effects 

 wrought on the body by plants, and the products of plants, 

 are supposed to be due to spirits dwelling in the plants. 

 Hence the medicine-man, or &quot; mystery-man,&quot; being con 

 cerned solely with supernatural causation of one or other 

 kind, foreshadows the physician only to the extent of using 

 some of the same means, and not as having the same ideas. 



As we shall presently see, it is rather from the priest 

 properly so called, who deals with ghosts not antagonis 

 tically but sympathetically, that the physician originates. 



