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battles, to see the wounded on both sides being dealt with by our surgeons. 
Operations of the most terribly painful character are being carried on and 
the patients are smiling, with an occasional wince or grimace, but meantime 
plaiting grass with their fingers or watching the application of the surgical 
implements with positive interest. 
There are amongst them two classes of medicine man, or woman—the 
acknowledged or suspected wizard or witch, who by his or her own confession 
aims at influence over the human frame with the aid of spirits or charms ; and 
the genuine doctor or doctress, a person who by no means discards the use 
of empirical methods or the action on the patient’s imagination secured by 
mystic rites and substances supposed to have magical value, but who neverthe¬ 
less has a considerable knowledge of drugs, and frequently effects remarkable 
cures by honest therapeutics. When a man, woman, or child falls ill the 
relatives (for there is much mutual help and sympathy amongst these people) 
go to the nearest and best doctor of repute. He is told the symptoms and 
asked to prescribe for the patient. If it be the opinion of the sufferer himself, 
or of his relatives, that his malady is solely due to withcraft, the person appealed 
to may be a witch-finder—often a woman. In such a case the patient is visited, 
various incantations and absurd rites are gone through, usually ending in a 
little clumsy tiger de main. The magician, having previously secreted some 
substance, will pretend to have drawn it from the person’s body and with it the 
sickness, or will have previously buried it at the base of a tree or at the lintel 
of the hut, and will then in the presence of the gullible bystanders dig it 
up, accompanying most of these actions by frantic leaping and gesticulation and 
even by involuntary self-induced convulsions. If the patient does not recover 
then the magician owns that the opposing witch or wizard has stronger spells 
and nothing can be done. If suspicion falls on any individual he or she is 
sometimes propitiated by presents and if recovery then follows all is well; if not 
then there is strong presumptive evidence that the death is due to this obstinate 
wizard, who to prove his or her innocence must submit to the Muavi ordeal. 
But it may be that the patient or his friends are convinced in the first instance 
that he is suffering from some well-known malady which can be easily cured by 
native drugs, or this is the opinion entertained by the doctor they have called 
in. This individual then proceeds to the woods and prepares from bark, leaves, 
flowers, seeds, or roots, such medicine as he may consider meets the case. It 
is noteworthy how efficacious these medicines are. In an obstinate case of 
seemingly incurable sickness, where a native soldier or policeman is apparently 
going to pieces, he will ask permission to return to his own people and go 
through a native cure. After a lapse of about three months, having completed 
his cure—whatever it may be—he returns sound and well. 
The whole subject of native drugs is a most important one, which is being 
carefully investigated by certain Europeans in the country. Already, it must 
be remembered, the valuable Sti'ophanthns drug, now much used in the British 
Pharmacopoeia, was originally sent home to this country by the late Mr. 
Buchanan, who had noticed that it was largely used in native medicine, and also 
for the purpose of stupefying fish and poisoning arrows. It is now one of our 
regular articles of export. 1 
1 Dr. Kerr Cross states:—“The Wankonde have a wonderful knowledge of herbs and medicinal 
plants. Of these they make infusions from the leaves, flower, bark, wood or roots. Often the blood of 
a white or red cock is added to the infusion which the sick man must drink. When he has done this a 
piece of the healing bark is worn round the neck. They also scarify the wound extensively to counteract 
