s
door, the soul appears at the sound of the whistle; for it is strongly
attracted by the soul-stuff of its friends in the packet. But the doctor
has still to catch it, a feat which is not so easily accomplished as
might be supposed. It is now that the whip of souls comes into play.
Suddenly the doctor heaves up his arm and lashes out at the truant soul
with all his might. If only he hits it, the business is done, the soul
is captured, the doctor carries it back to the house in triumph, and
restores it to the body of the poor sick man, who necessarily
recovers.[442]

[Sidenote: Extracting ghosts from a sick man.]

But suppose that the result of the diagnosis is different, and that on
mature consideration the doctor should decide that a ghost and not a
sorcerer is at the bottom of the mischief. The question then naturally
arises whether the sick man has not of late been straying on haunted
ground and infected himself with the very dangerous soul-stuff or
spiritual essence of the dead. If he remembers to have done so, some
leaves are fetched from the place in the forest where the mishap
occurred, and with them the whole body of the sufferer or the wound, as
the case may be, is stroked or brushed down. The healing virtue of this
procedure is obvious. The ghosts who are vexing the patient are
attracted by the familiar smell of the leaves which come from their old
home; and yielding in a moment of weakness to the soft emotions excited
by the perfume they creep out of the body of the sick man and into the
leaves. Quick as thought the doctor now whisks the leaves away with the
ghosts in them; he belabours them with a cudgel, he hangs them up in the
smoke, or he throws them into the fire. Such powerful disinfectants have
their natural results; if the ghosts are not absolutely destroyed they
are at least disarmed, and the sick is made whole.

[Sidenote: Scraping ghosts from the patient's body.]

Another equally effective cure for sickness caused by ghosts is this.
You take a stout stick, cleave it down the middle so that the two ends
remain entire, and give it to two men to hold. Then the sick man pokes
his head through the cleft; after that you rub him with the stick from
the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. In this way you
obviously scrape off the bloodsucking ghosts who are clinging like flies
or mosquitoes to his person, and having thus transferred them to the
cleft stick you throw it away or otherwise destroy