Boer Folk-Medicine and some Parallels. II.
(Continued from p. 75.)
In the Blue-book entitled Further Papers relating to the Working of the Refugee Camps in South Africa, in the report on the Bloemfontein camp, Dr. Kendal Franks writes: "We know that in the United Kingdom, amongst the lowest classes, the ideas regarding the treatment of the sick and the remedies employed are primitive in the extreme, and some of them belong to the period of the dark ages. But these primitive, ignorant, and frequently revolting methods are almost universal among the Boers, and are found among every class. I found many instances of it in the camp at Bloemfontein. There is here a Mr. J. Kruger, a nephew of the ex-president. Being a man of superior intelligence he has been selected for one of the higher offices in the camp. One day he told the superintendent that his wife was suffering a good deal from rheumatism, and he requested Mr. Randle to use his influence with Dr. Baumann to allow him to give his wife a cow-dung bath, which he stated was 'the best thing for rheumatism.' Mr. Randle one day visited Abram Strauss, a man who had been selected as one of the head-men of the camp, and in virtue of his office was housed in a marquee. Mr. Randle was surprised to see a cat running about the tent with all its fur clipped off. He inquired the cause, and was informed that the fur had been cut off and roasted and then applied to his child's chest as a remedy for bronchitis. Dr. Pern, the medical officer, told me that he was once sent for to see a child who was ill in one of the tents. When he entered the tent, for some moments he could not make out what he saw. He then discovered that the parents had killed a goat and cut it open, removing all the internal organs. They had then put the child bodily inside the goat, with its head alone protruding through the opening made by removing the breast-bone."
A favourite remedy for jaundice, Dr. Franks found, "is to rub the patient's body with cabbage seeds. The seeds are then sown. When they come up the jaundice disappears. The tooth of a horse worn on a string round the neck is believed to cure rheu-
