262 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Determine to be cupped. — Mode of operating. — Medical knowledge 

 of the Shoans. — Surgery. — Remarks upon their diseases and 

 their remedies. — The cosso tree. — Mode of using the cosso. — 

 Other curative processes. — Manufacture of gunpowder. — Suc- 

 cess. — Health improving. 



August 1th. — Being Sunday, Tinta did not come to 

 my house. I also staid within all day, and took 

 advantage of Walderheros having nothing to do, to 

 be cupped in the Abyssinian manner, during the 

 cold stage of the fever, and which I expected would 

 attack me in the afternoon. A constant dull pain 

 in the left side, just over the region of the spleen, 

 gave me considerable uneasiness, for although I 

 was aware that in ague this viscus is always 

 affected, still I could not divest myself of the idea 

 that in my case it must be organically diseased. 

 I proposed, therefore, that the incisions should be 

 made in that situation, but Walderheros would not 

 hear of such a thing. Abstracting blood, to be 

 beneficial, he asserted, must either be upon the 

 crown of the head or at the back of the neck, and 

 should he perform the operation anywhere else, and 

 after all I should die, that the JSTegoos would put 



