APPENDIX 



449 



The commonest lesions from which savage people suffer are 

 those produced by external injury in the course of hunting or 

 fishing, during their wanderings over hill and dale and their 

 feuds with neighbouring tribes. 



Minor injuries are treated by the patients themselves ; small 

 wounds, and also those made by snake bites, are sucked and then 

 tied up with leaves and strips of bark. Thorns, stings, splinters 

 of wood and other substances are withdrawn with the finger 

 simple accomplishments in which primitive man does not differ 

 much from the higher animals, such as apes. But a stage of 

 human therapeutics much more developed than that of the 

 animals may soon be observed. Setting of fractures and dis- 

 locations and the opening of the larger abscesses even with the 

 most primitive instruments cannot be done by the patient him- 

 self, but require the help of another. This second party was at 

 first the nearest and closest friend, but later with the further 

 growth of social impulses the practice of therapeutics came into 

 the hands of specially skilled persons, the so-called medicine- 

 men ; which fact tended more and more to the development of 

 their surgical resources and their knowledge of the medicinal 

 properties of certain plants. 



In the following brief account of obstetrics it will be seen 

 that in this department of therapeutics a vast difference is 

 noticeable between man and animals. Mammals, who alone 

 need be considered, have a specific advantage over man in the 

 roomy construction of their pelves, which renders difficult labour 

 one of the rarest events among wild animals. If such a case 

 occurs, however, the female animal is abandoned, as neither 

 herself nor any comrade of the same species can afford her the 

 necessary assistance. " Parturition," says Brehm, " is nearly 

 always rapid and easy, and takes place without the help or 

 sympathy of any other creature." The opening of the mem- 

 branes and the division of the cord are managed by the mother 

 herself, and Brehm only quotes one doubtful instance in which 

 a domestic cat is said to have bitten through the cord of the 

 kittens of another young cat. 



Among even the most primitive men the conditions are 

 quite different. If labour is difficult, all the neighbours assemble 

 to give counsel and help. And when medicine-men have been 

 evolved in a tribe, they step into the breach often with the most 



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