132 
HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
may happen to awaken a man from sound slumber. No amount of questioning, 
however, could enable me to ascertain what rule, if any, guided the selection of the 
awakener or the slumberer. The latter arises dazed and stupefied, as if drunk, 
and complains of feeling ill. The existing practitioner examines him, or if there 
is none present, one is brought from a neighbouring camp, who fails to find any 
ailment, and tells the supposed sufferer that he will soon be well. He, however, 
continues, for some time, in the same dazed condition Imt eventually recovers. 
He is again examined, and it is discovered that he “ has a bone,” {vide supra) 
whereon the doctor applies his mouth to the place where this is said to be 
present, and, after making pretence of withdrawing it by suction, he spits out a 
bone before the face of those present. After the assembled natives are satisfied 
that there has been no deception, the doctor, once more applying his mouth to 
the part of the body whence the bone is supposed to have been removed, makes 
believe that it has been put back again. The novitiate, as he may now lie called, 
then camps by him.self for about two months, after which period he becomes 
qualified to practice on his own account. 
It also appears that certain persons become wizards in virtue of some physical 
infirmity or mental eccentricity. 
From some of the Luritchas I extracted the information, though I am 
doubtful whether it may be relied on, that, with them, when any man desires 
to become a wizard he has vertical incisions, just deep enough to bleed, made 
on the front of the thighs and abdomen into which the magic afflatus is supposed 
to enter; the old hand then initiates the new into the secrets of his arts. 
Notes on some Pathological Conditions affecting White Settlers 
in Central Australia. 
Besides taking charge of the anthropological department, the medical care 
of the Expedition—happily almost a sinecure as regards the health of the party— 
was part of my duty, and, as the medical observer seldom penetrates into Central 
Australia, a few notes on some peculiar pathological conditions, as affecting white 
men, may not be without interest. 
There is a complaint, from which those long resident in the distant bush 
frequently suffer severely, which has received the name of the “ Barcoo Sickness ” 
or simply “ Barcoo,” this being the native name of the Cooper lliver, a large 
watercourse which drains south-western Queensland 'aud, in times of flood, flows 
