PRACTICE IN A FOWLHOUSE 35 
the metal one which shows that they have paid their 
five franc poll tax for the current year. It is seldom 
lost or forgotten, and many of them, especially among 
the Pahouins, regard it as a kind of fetish. 
My name among the natives in Galoa is “ Oganga,” 
i.e., fetishman. They have no other name for a doctor, 
as those of their own tribesmen who practise the heal- 
ing art are all fetishmen. My patients take it to be 
only logical that the man who can heal disease should 
also have the power of producing it, and that even at a 
distance. To me it is striking that I should have the 
reputation of being such a good creature and yet, at 
the same time, such a dangerous one ! That the dis- 
eases have some natural cause never occurs to mv 
patients : they attribute them to evil spirits, to mali- 
cious human magic, or to " the worm,” which is their 
imaginary embodiment of pain of every sort. When 
they are asked to describe their symptoms, they talk 
about the worm, telling how he was first in their legs, 
then got into their head, and from there made his way 
to their heart ; how he then visited their lungs, and 
finally settled in their stomach. All medicines have 
to be directed to expelling him. If I quiet a colic 
with tincture of opium, the patient comes next day 
beaming with joy and tells me the worm has been driven 
out of his body but is now settled in his head and is 
devouring his brain : will I please give him something 
to banish the worm from his head too ? 
A great deal of time is lost trying to make them 
understand how the medicines are to be taken. Over 
and over again the interpreter tells them, and they 
repeat it after him ; it is written, also, on the bottle 
or box, so that they can hear the directions again from 
