38 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
but the priest usually went himself to compound 
the raau or medicine: a considerable degree of 
mystery was attached to this proceeding, 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 diseases; and although 
they kept the composition of their nostrums a 
secret, they were not unwilling that the report of 
their efficacy might spread, in order to their ob¬ 
taining celebrity and extended practice. 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 mai ”—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 onilio , which in its progress, and 
the effects on the face, corresponds with the small¬ 
pox, excepting that it is milder, and the inequa¬ 
lities it leaves on the skin soon disappear. 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. Inflam¬ 
matory 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 persons 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 
