From the book “Stirring Scenes In Savage Lands” by James Greenwood, published in 1865.
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The science of surgery and medicine, as practised among savages, forms not the least curious and interesting feature in the story of their lives. Since they have as a rule no belief in natural or unavoidable death, it follows that natural or unavoidable sickness, as being the agents of death, are no more faithfully entertained. Unlike us, who have a name for the thousand ills that afflict us—from tooth-rash to elephantiasis—the savage has but one name for all the diseases he is acquainted with, and that one name is—the devil. Ague—and it is the devil within the man shaking his limbs; rheumatism, myriads of tiny imps are under the skin nibbling the wretched sufferer’s bones; stomach-ache, tooth-ache, head-ache—it is the devil, and nobody and nothing else.
The business of the witch-doctor, or the greegree man, is to eject the devil from his patient—by fair means or foul as soon as possible.
