HEART DISEASE. MENTAL MALADIES. POISON 45 
Joseph and I were now doing all the work without 
help. N’Zeng went off to his village on leave in August, 
and, as he did not return at the time agreed on, he was 
discharged. Joseph gets 70 francs {£2 i6s.) a month, 
though as a cook at Cape Lopez he used to get 120 
(£4 i6s.). He finds it hard that work demanding some 
education should be worse paid than the common 
kinds. 
The number of people with heart complaints 
astonishes me more and more. They, on the other 
hand, are astonished that I know all about their trouble 
as soon as I have examined them with the stethoscope. 
“ Now I believe we’ve got a real doctor ! ” said an old 
woman to Joseph not long ago. “ He knows that I can 
often hardly breathe at night, and that I often have 
swollen feet, yet I’ve never told him a word about it and 
he has never even look ed at my feet . ” I cannot help say- 
ing to myself that there is something really glorious in 
the means which modern medicine has for treating the 
heart. I give digitalis according to the new French 
method (daily doses of a tenth of a milligram of digi- 
talin continued for weeks and months) and am more 
than pleased with the results obtained. It must be 
said that it is easier to treat heart disease here than it 
is in Europe, for when patients are told that they must 
rest and keep quiet for weeks, they are never obliged 
to object that they will lose their wages and perhaps 
their work. They simply live at home and “ recruit,” 
and their family, in the widest sense of that word, 
supports them. 
Mental complaints are relatively rarer here than in 
Europe, though I have already seen some half-dozen 
such. They are a great worry as I do not know how to 
