MEDICAL EXPEDIENCES. 
237 
through whose territory it may be necessary to 
pass. 
The Medical School and Hospital, attached 
to the palace at the capital, is one of the most 
striking evidences of the far-sightedness and 
accurate knowledge of the wants of the country 
which has distinguished the supremacy of his 
Excellency the present prime minister, Kainilaia- 
rivony. Several native youths have even distin¬ 
guished themselves in the famous medical classes 
at Edinburgh ; and the foundation, indeed, of 
the whole hospital system in Madagascar is due 
to the energy of Dr Davidson, a distinguished 
member of the faculty of medicine of Edinburgh 
University, who has done good work in his time 
for both the Government and people of the island. 
The remedies in the native pharmacopoeia are 
extremely limited, and consist chiefly of charms, 
bits of bone, feathers, grass, twisted silk, and 
some herbal preparations. They till lately be¬ 
lieved strongly in what is generally designated 
as a samjpy , or charm, each family having its 
own, and each person also having some particular 
object which he regarded as of peculiar virtue. 
For instance, one family would revere the Indian 
corn stalk, another the fowl, and a third the 
water, and so on. A few grains of rice, or some 
powdered coffee, have been found tied about 
the necks of children, to shield them from the 
