cord is, of
course, the familiar Demon Theory. This is simply a mental magnification
of the painfully personal, and even vindictive, impression produced upon
the mind of the savage by the ravages of disease. And certainly we of
the profession would be the last to blame him for jumping to such a
conclusion. Who that has seen a fellow being quivering and chattering in
the chill-stage of a pernicious malarial seizure, or tossing and raving
in the delirium of fever, or threatening to rupture his muscles and
burst his eyes from their sockets in the convulsions of tetanus or
uraemia, can wonder for a moment that the impression instinctively arose
in the untutored mind of the Ojibwa that the sufferer was actually in
the grasp, and trying to escape from the clutch, of some malicious but
invisible power? And from this conception the treatment logically
followed. The spirits which possessed the patient, although invisible,
were supposed to be of like passions with ourselves, and to be affected
by very similar influences; hence dances, terrific noises, beatings and
shakings of the unfortunate victim, and the administration of bitter and
nauseous messes, with the hope of disgusting the demon with his
quarters, were the chief remedies resorted to. And while to-day such
conceptions and their resultant methods are simply grounds for laughter,
and we should probably resent the very suggestion that there was any
connection whatever between the Demon Theory and our present practice,
yet, unfortunately for our pride, the latter is not only the direct
lineal, historic descendant of the former, but bears still abundant
traces of its lowly origin. It will, of course, be admitted at once that
the ancestors of our profession, historically, the earliest physicians,
were the priest, the Shaman, and the conjurer, who even to this day in
certain tribes bear the suggestive name of "medicine men." Indeed, this
grotesque individual was neither priest nor physician, but the common
ancestor of both, and of the scientist as well. And, even if the history
of this actual ancestry were unknown, there are scores of curious
survivals in the medical practice of this century, even of to-day, which
testify to the powerful influence of this conception. The extraordinary
and disgraceful prevalence of bleeding scarcely fifty years ago, for
instance; the murderous doses of calomel and other violent purges; the
indiscriminate use of powerful emetics like tartar emetic