quent ailments
found in the country.

The Lamas explained to me that all diseases arose from fever, instead of
fever being an accompaniment of most illnesses, and furthermore, that
fever itself was but an evil spirit, which assumed different forms when
it entered the body, and caused all sorts of complaints. The fever demon,
they asserted, was a spirit, but there were yet other demons who were so
good as to bring us riches and happiness. For instance, when a man after
a dangerous illness visited a a cave, waterfall or river-gorge which
these demons were supposed to haunt, he might have a relapse and die, or
he might be instantly cured and live happy ever afterwards. In the latter
case, as would naturally be expected, the recipient of such inestimable
privileges generally returned to pay a second visit to the kindly spirits
who made his life worth living, "but," said the Lamas quite seriously,
"when he goes a second time he will get blind or paralytic, as a
punishment for his greediness."

"The evil spirits," continued a fat old Lama with crooked fingers, which
he clenched and shook as he spoke, "are in the shape of human beings or
like goats, dogs, sheep or ponies, and sometimes they assume the
semblance of wild animals, such as bears and snow leopards."

I told the Lamas that I had remarked many cases of goitre and also other
abnormalities, such as hare-lip and webbed fingers and toes, as well as
the very frequent occurrence of supernumerary fingers or toes. I asked
them the reason for such cases, and they attributed them, with the
exception of webbed fingers, to the mischievous work of demons before the
child's birth; they could not, however, suggest a remedy for goitre.

Inguinal and umbilical hernia are quite common, as I have on several
occasions observed, and coarse belts are made according to the taste and
ingenuity of the sufferer, but are of hardly any efficacy in preventing
the increase of the swellings.

A common complaint, especially among the older women, was rheumatism,
from which they seemed to suffer considerably. It affected their fingers
and toes, and particularly the wrists and ankles, the joints swelling so
as to render them quite stiff, the tendons contracting, swelling, and
becoming prominent and hard in the palms of the hands.

Both before and after my conversation with the Lamas I had opportunities
of ascertaining that the stomachs of the Tibetans are seldom in good
working order. But how c