Prehistoric man and his early efforts to combat disease / by T. Wilson Parry.

  • Parry, Thomas Wilson, 1866-1945.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Prehistoric man and his early efforts to combat disease / by T. Wilson Parry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    wonder the name of Hippocrates stands out as a shining light in a time of darkness and superstition, when truth itself was at an amazing discount. I said just now that it was the imagination of man that first led him to think wrongly, and I will explain this by saying that the first period in the Fig. 2.—Flint-pointed bo A^-drill used in first stage of trephining skull for removal of rondel of bone. History of Medicine is known as the Instinctive Period, or the Period of Demonology. It might equally well have been called the Experimental Period, for was it not during this time that Man was making his first tests—^and daring tests many of them must have been—to discriminate between various leaves, roots, berries, fruits and fungi to ascertain their dietetic and medicinal values? Now I wish to state here that as embryology epitomises evolution, so the study of the present-day primitive savage unfolds to us the larger history of pre- historic man. It was no doubt the twin mystery of Disease and Death that first stimulated man to think, that is why the Medicine-man and the Priest were one and the same individual at the out- set. The position of the Medicine-man in the tribe must have been a most exalted one. In a fas- cinating book just published on the American- Indian called (®) “The Vanishing Race,” this is well shown. “ The Indian,” it says, “ aspires to be a great hunter ; he seeks fame as a noble warrior, he struggles for the eagle feathers ol distinction, but his greatest longing is to become a Medicine- man and know the Great Mystery.” Witchcraft and magic early took a chief part in the treatment of disease, and Demonology reigned supreme for many millenniums. Demonology is ba'sed on “Animism,” and this latter briefly consists in the belief in the influence of the spirits of dead persons. Animism has its beautiful as well as its hideous aspect. The wide belief among savage races that inanimate objects, as well as animate beings, are all possessed of a spirit has been well demonstrated lately by Maeterlinck’s exquisite allegory “The Blue Bird,” which shows the happy side of this creed. The unhappy side is illustrated by the reverence bestowed on spiritual monsters and the propitiation required of them. Can we afford to smile or be cynical at such beliefs? Was not the God cyf the Hebrews on manv occasions regarded as a demon of unparalleled dimensions, to wit (^) “ The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming ”? The three chief theories of disease were : (a) The anger of a disaffected spirit; (b) witchcraft; or (c) offended spirits of dead persons. (2) Tlie Mantira, a low race of the Malay Peninsula, believe that there is a separate disease-spirit for every illness (this is not unlike our present germ theory), one for small-pox, one for inflammation of the hands and feet, and one for haemorrhage; in the latter case the spirit is thought to fasten itself on tlie wound of the individual and suck out his blood. <11 the Indian Archipelago disease-spirits are con- ciliated by presents and dances. (®i In Polynesia every illness is set down to deities which have been offended or which have been urged to afflict the sufferer by their enemies. W The Prairie Indians treat all diseases in the same way, as they must all have been caused by one evil spirit. (lO) The aboriginal New Zealanders had a separate demon for each part of the body to cause disease. Tonga caused headache and sickness; Moko-Tiki was responsible for chest pains, and so on. The Zulus believe that spirits, when angry, seize a living man’s body and inflict disease and death, and when kindly disposed give health and cattle. The Dayaks of Borneo acknowledge a supreme God, but attribute all kinds of diseases and calamities to the malignity of evil spirits. Their system of medi- cine consists in the application of appropriate charms or the offering of conciliatory sacrifices. Verily the whole world is kin, for we have only to .step across the channel into Brittany to-day, to find that similar pagan ideas are still universally nccepted there, but, of course, under very different auspices. The Breton’s deities are neither Tonga nor Moko-Tiki, but if they are suffering from boils they offer prayers to St. Maudez, if from fevers they petition St. Gondry. (^2) Xhe earth from the Figs. 3, 4 and g.—Primitive Surgical Instruments. Fig 3, halted shark’s tooth; Fig. 4, halted flint flake; Fig. g, halted obsidian flake {Admiralty Island knife). toml> of this latter saint is considered a cure for any kind of fever. It is sold in little muslin bags and lied round the necks of the patients. (2) In the XVth century the Catholic Church had a very long list of saints, each of which presided over some special complaint. St. Agatha healed sore breasts, St. .<\pollonia toothache, St. Benedict stone,