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once. As the disease is communicable by contact, 

 the person so afflicted is necessarily shunned by 

 society ; and this poor woman, who is married to 

 John Fuller, one of the best young men on the 

 estate, and by whom she has had four children (al- 

 though they are all dead), has for some time been 

 obliged to live separated from him, lest he should 

 be destroyed by contracting the same complaint. 

 She now came to tell me, that she wanted a 

 blanket, " for that the cold killed her of nights ; " 

 cold being that which negroes dislike most, and 

 from which most of their illnesses arise. Of course 

 she got her blanket ; then she said, that she wanted 

 medicine for her complaint. " Had not the doctor 

 seen her ? " " Oh, yes ! Dr. Goodwin ; but the 

 white doctor could do her no good. She wanted 

 to go to a black doctor, named Ormond, who 

 belonged to a neighbouring gentleman." I told 

 her, that if this black doctor understood her par- 

 ticular disease better than others, certainly she 

 should go to him ; but that if he pretended to cure 

 her by charms or spells, or any thing but medicine, 

 I should desire his master to cure the black doctor 

 by giving him the punishment proper for such an 

 impostor. Upon this Bessie burst into tears, and 

 said " that Ormond was not an Obeah man, and 

 that she had suffered too much by Obeah men to 

 wish to have any more to do with them. She had 

 made Adam her enemy by betraying him, when he 

 had attempted to poison the former attorney ; he 



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