272 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
went himself to compound the raau or medicine : a con¬ 
siderable degree of mystery was attached to their proceed¬ 
ings, and the physicians appeared unwilling that others 
should know of what their preparations consisted. They 
pretended to be instructed by their god, as to the herbs 
they should select, and the manner of combining them. 
Different raaus, or medicines, were used for different dis¬ 
eases ; and although they kept the composition of their 
nostrums a secret, they were not unwilling that the re¬ 
port of their efficacy might be known, in order to their 
being employed by others. Hence, when a person was 
afflicted with any particular disease, and the inquiry made 
as to who should be sent for, it was not unusual to hear 
it said—O ta mea te raau maitai no ia maty ''—such a 
one has a good medicine for this disease. 
The small-pox, measles, hooping-cough, and a variety 
of other diseases, to which most European children are 
subject, are unknown \ yet they have a disease called 
onihoy which in its progress, and the effects on the face, 
corresponds with the small-pox, excepting that it is 
milder, and the inequalities it leaves on the skin soon dis¬ 
appear. There is another disease, somewhat analogous to 
this, resembling the species of erysipelas called shingles, 
for the cure of which the natives apply a mixture of 
bruised herbs and pulverized charcoal. Inflammatory 
tumors are prevalent; and the only remedy they apply, 
is a mixture of herbs bruised with a stone. Asthmatic, 
and other pulmonary affections also occur, and, with per¬ 
sons about the age of twenty, generally prove fatal. 
Among the most prevalent and obstinate diseases to 
which, as a nation, they are exposed, is one which termi - 
nates in a permanent affection of the spine; it usually 
appears in early life, commencing in the form of an inter- 
