This page has already been transcribed. You can find new pages to transcribe here.

Transcription

[Page 471]

Manners & Customs of the S. Sea Isles

their method of praying at the Marai's which I shall by & by describe That they have however besides these operations of Preistcraft a knowledge of Medecine not to be despis'd we were abundantly convinc'd of by the following fact. The Spanish ship which visited this Island about 17 months before we came brought with it the Venereal disease & that in a most virulent degree these people have often describd to me in most pathetick terms the shocking symptoms with which the poor wretches were afflicted who were first seizd by this filthy distemper which in their Language they call by a name of Nearly the same but a more extensive signification than rotteness in English their hair & nails dropd off & their very flesh rotted from their bones so that they dyed miserable objects shunnd by their nearest relations fearfull least they themselves might be tainted with the dreadfull Contagion. Yet shocking as these symptoms were they had even at the time when we came there found a method of cure & that I should suppose not of a despicable nature as we saw no one during the whole of our stay in whoom the

Current Status: 
Completed