Health for the Maori : a manual for use in native schools / by James H. Pope.

  • Pope, James H.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health for the Maori : a manual for use in native schools / by James H. Pope. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    if HO medicine at all be taken. Doetors ean give great help even in these cases, by prevent- ing nineb pain and suffering; but they do not cure the disease; it dies out of itself, and the patient is well again. There is not the smallest reason to think that any ease of real sickness has ever been cured by these Maori doctors ; Avhat has happened is, that a man has been ill, he has visited the tohunga, and he has got well, lie would have got well all the same if the tohunga had been ten thousand miles away. In a few cases, perha^js, people have been cured in this way : they felt ill and sad, and thought themselves about to die; then perhaps they heard that a Maori doctor was curing a great many people : this made them begin to hope. When they went to the doctor he told them they could be cured : this made them still more hopeful. Hope made them cheerful j their sadness went away ; their desire for food came back, and at last they got well. This was how they got cured by the IMaori doctor. A visit to a cliccrful friend, who would have made them laugh and lose their sadness, would have done them just as much good. But, M'hilc these foolish IMaori doctors can do no good, it is quite certain that they do a great deal of harm. There arc two ways in which this take.? place. Sometimes when a Native is really ill he goes to one of these useless tohungus