Distribution of Tropical Diseases in Africa. 459 
of treatment which are employed for their cure. It would 
of course require a volume to deal with the subject adequately, 
but I hope I shall be able to say sufficient to give an 
intelligent ontline of the subject. 
It will be well in the first place to describe what 
methods are employed by the natives in Africa in com- 
batting disease, in so far as any obtain, and then to describe 
the methods of treating disease which are indicated by 
modern medicine. 
It would be a hopeless task were I to attempt to describe 
in detail the minutiz of medical and surgical treatment 
adopted by the natives for accident and disease in various 
parts of Africa, nor do I consider it necessary. It will be 
better, I fancy, to give a more general outline of the subject, 
but it is very necessary to state that I am doing so, for 
different methods obtain among different tribes, and even 
neighbouring tribes may have different ideas and customs 
with regard to any single disease. Were I not to state this 
definitely, I should easily lay myself open to criticism by 
any observer who had a knowledge of one single tribe 
exclusively. 
The natives of Africa, and by these I mean the Negroes, 
Bantus, and the Arabs inhabiting the Soudan, excluding the 
Egyptians and the inhabitants along the northern African 
coast, have many superstitions with regard to medicine. 
Broadly speaking, one may say that the questions of life and 
death, health, and sickness, or accident, bulk largely in their 
ethical cogitations, and I do not think I am going too far 
when I say that the natives consider that all the evils which 
flesh is heir to result from the malign influence of the powers 
of the air. So they have pictured to themselves gods of 
small-pox or famine, gods of thunder, in fact a hierarchy of 
spirits who shape the destinies of men, and who may torment 
them if not controlled by charms or propitiated by votive 
offerings. Recognising this fact, remembering the native 
suspicious nature, their belief in fetishes and charms, the evil 
eye, etc., it is not to be wondered at that incantations play~ 
a marked réle in their treatment of disease; but it is a 
mistaken notion to suppose that there is not a basis of true 
