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[Page 473]

Manners & Customs of the South Sea Islands

has had one made by a spear of his countrey headed with the bone of a stingrays tail which has peircd quite through his body entering at his back & coming out just under his breast yet this has been so well curd that the remaing scar is as smooth & as small as any I have seen from the cures of our best European surgeons

Vulnerary herbs they have many nor do they seem at all nice in the choice of them so they have plenty of such herbaceous plants as yeild mild juices devoid of all acridity such as chickweed groundsell &c. in England. With these they make fomentations which they frequently apply to the wound taking care to cleanse it as often as possible the patient all the time observing great abstinence by this method if they have told us true their wounds are curd in a very short time As for their medicines we learn'd but little concerning them they told us indeed freely that such & such plants were good for such & such distempers but it requird a much better knowledge of the language than we were able to obtain during our short stay to understand the method of application even of those they

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