The Baths Are
Sometimes Of Hot Water With A Few Herbs Thrown In, Sometimes They
Are Made By Digging A Hole In The Earth And Putting Into It A
Quantity Of Herbs, And Bruised Cardamoms, And Peppers.
Boiling
water is then plentifully poured over these and the patient is
placed in the bath and is covered over with the parboiled green
stuff; a coating of clay is then placed over all, leaving just the
head sticking out.
The patient remains in this bath for a period of
a few hours, up to a day and a half, and when taken out is well
rubbed and kneaded. This form of bath I saw used by the M'pongwe
and Igalwas, and it is undoubtedly good for many diseases, notably
for that curse of the Coast, rheumatism, which afflicts black and
white alike. Rubbing and kneading and hot baths are, I think, the
best native remedies, and the plaster of grains-of-paradise pounded
up, and mixed with clay, and applied to the forehead as a remedy for
malarial headache, or brow ague, is often very useful, but apart
from these, I have never seen, in any of these herbal remedies, any
trace of a really valuable drug.
The Calabar natives are notably behindhand in their medical methods,
depending more on ju-ju than the Bantus. In a case of rheumatism,
for example, instead of ordering the hot bath, the local
practitioner will "woka" his patient and extract from the painful
part, even when it has not been wounded, pieces of iron pot,
millipedes, etc., and, in cases of dysentery, bundles of shred-up
palm-leaves.
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