120 CHII,D MEDICINE. 



the relief which a few seconds of English art afforded, 

 the prejudice vanished at once. As it would have been 

 out of the question for me to have entered upon this branch 

 of the profession, — as indeed it would be inexpedient for 

 any medical man to devote himself exclusively, in a 

 thinly-peopled country, to the practice of medicine, — 

 I thereafter reserved myself for the difficult cases only ; 

 and had. the satisfaction of often conferring great benefits 

 on poor women in their hour of sorrow. The poor crea- 

 tures are often placed in a little hut built for the purpose, 

 and are left without any assistance whatever, and the 

 numbers of umbilical herniae which are met with in con- 

 sequence is very great. The women suffer less at their 

 confinement than is the case in civilised countries ; 

 perhaps from their treating it not as a disease, but as 

 an operation of nature, requiring no change of diet, 

 except a feast of meat and abundance of fresh air. The 

 husband on these occasions is bound to slaughter for 

 his lady an ox, or goat, or sheep, according to his 

 means. 



My knowledge in the above line procured for me great 

 fame in a department in which I could lay no claim to 

 merit. A woman came a distance of one hundred miles 

 for relief in a complaint which seemed to have baffled 

 the native doctors ; a complete cure was the result. 

 Some twelve months after she returned to her husband, 

 she bore a son. Her husband having previously re- 

 proached her for being barren, she sent me a handsome 

 present, and proclaimed all over the country that I 

 possessed a medicine for the cure of sterility. The con- 

 sequence was, that I was teased with applications from 

 husbands and wives from all parts of the country. Some 

 came upwards of two hundred miles to purchase the great 

 boon, and it was in vain for me to explain that I had 

 only cured the disease of the other case. The more 

 I denied, the higher their offers rose ; they would give 

 any money for the " child medicine ; " and it was really 

 heart-rending to hear the earnest entreaty, and see the 

 tearful eye, which spoke the intense desire for offspring : 

 " I am getting old, you see grey hairs here and there 

 on my head, and I have no child ; you know how Bechuana 

 husbands cast their old wives away ; what can I do ? 

 I have no child to bring water to me when I am 

 sick," &c. 



