MEDICAL ATTENDANCE. 165 



advocated by Hippocrates among the ancients, and by Sydenham, 

 as well as others among the moderns. 



Connected with this subject is the question of medical assist- 

 ance and hospital relief, on which I propose offering a few remarks. 



The practice of medicine is, in the rural districts a laborious 

 and wearisome occupation, requiring an unusual degree of strength 

 and stamina ; and unless some cogent inducement is offered to 

 the medical man to settle in the couutry, he will always and that 

 naturally give preference to the towns. But except a few 

 proprietors or managers, who are willing to engage the services of 

 a medical man for themselves and families, or for indentured 

 labourers, very few are prepared, or even willing, to pay for his 

 assistance. As a consequence there are now only four medical 

 men practising in the rural districts ; the others being resident in 

 Port-of-Spain, San Fernando, and St. Joseph. " The effects of 

 such a partial distribution," says Dr. J. Davy, " it need hardly be 

 remarked, concern the interests of society generally, arid is one of 

 the great drawbacks to settling in a new country, especially where 

 slave labour is excluded." Several young men of the faculty 

 have already retired from the colony in search of a more profitable 

 field ; should those who remain die or retire also, there is no 

 chance of their being replaced. 



Immediately after, and on several occasions since emancipa- 

 tion, attempts were made for securing medical aid to the class of 

 artisans in towns, of labourers located on estates, and of small 

 settlers generally, on their contributing the small sum of ten cents 

 per week for each working person children and old people being 

 attended gratuitously; incredible, however, as it may appear, 

 these attempts have invariably failed. After a few weeks, or two 

 or three months at the utmost, such of the subscribers who had 

 not been subject to any attack during that period withdrew their 

 subscription, on the pretext that it was not fair they should pay 

 for the doctor whilst they enjoyed good health. But these very 

 people, when ailing, are unwilling, and in most cases unable, to 

 pay the fee ; and they then throw themselves into the hands of 

 male and female quacks, or obeah practisers, who bleed, cup, 

 prescribe nostrums, and give their own personal attendance, 

 exacting more or less from their dupes, according to their own 

 status or reputation in quackery or obeahism. They are punctually 

 paid chiefly from a superstitious dread infused into the minds of 



