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am inclind to think that their knowledge of Physick is but small from the state of their surgery which more than once came under my inspection. Of this art they seemd totaly ignorant; I saw several who were wounded by our shot without the smallest application upon their wounds, one in particular who had a musquet ball shot through the fleshy part of his arm; he came out of his house and shewd himself to us making a little use of the wounded arm; the wound which was then of several days standing was totaly void of inflammation, seemd well digested, in short appeard to me to be in so good a state that had any application been made use of I should not have faild to enquire carefully what it had Been which had had so good an Effect.
A farther proof and not a weak one of the sound health that these people enjoy may be taken from the number of old people we saw; hardly a canoe came off to us that did not bring one or more and every town had several whoom if we may judge by gray hairs and worn out teeth were of a very advancd age. Of these few or none were decrepid, indeed the greatest number of them seemd in vivacity and chearfullness to equal the young, indeed to be inferior
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 194, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-224.html