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their method of praying at the Marai's which I shall by and 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 and 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 and nails dropd off and 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 and that I should suppose not of a despicable nature, as we saw no one during the whole of our stay in whoom the
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol.1) 413, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-166.html