LETTER XXV.
It being stipulated that all subjects of remark may find place in my Notes, you will not reproach me, if an occasional sentence shall chance to be given upon medical matters. Indeed, you have desired it should be so, and this prevents the necessity of apology.
You will have collected, from what I have said before, that there are gentlemen engaged in the healing art in Barbadoes, who are, equally, an honor to their profession, and an ornament to society, and I may here repeat that many such are to be met with in the island. But it is an unhappy truth that there are others who are only pre-eminent in ignorance, for, alas! practitioners in medicine may be found in this colony, who, in learning and manners, are not far removed above the slaves. They are more illiterate than you can believe, and the very negro doctors of the estates too justly vie with them in medical knowledge. It has happened to us to see, among them, men, who instead of having the care of the health and lives of their fellow-subjects, ought not to be intrusted to compound a pill, or a bolus. A tyro, advanced only a year or two in his apprenticeship, in England, is far better instructed in medicine, than some of the soi-disans and practising proficients of Barbadoes. Totally unprepared with a classical education, and, indeed, wholly devoid of the very rudiments of literature, they indolently waste a few years, in the house, or idly looking out at the shop-window of some uneducated apothecary of the island, and then, in all the bold confidence of ignorance, they commence Doctors, feeling themselves fully qualified, without professional reading, without visiting the schools of Europe, without experience, and I might say, without thought, or judgment, to undertake the cure of all the direful maladies which afflict mankind; in short, without one necessary qualification do these creole pretenders feel themselves competent to exercise all the various branches of the healing art.
In every climate, a sound judgment, and an acuteness of discrimination, together with a correct knowledge of the human frame, are necessary to the successful treatment of diseases: but in the West Indies, where the attack is too commonly sudden, and the progress destructively rapid, if the disorder be neglected or badly treated, in its incipient stage, medicine becomes inefficient, and, too often, the disease cannot be subdued by all the art of the best-informed Physician. How lamentable, then, is it that such ignorant medicasters should be intrusted, and particularly in a tropical region, with the health and lives of multitudes of their fellow-beings!
When we reflect that the riches and prosperity of a country are intimately connected with its population, and that the lives of men are of the greatest importance to the state, it becomes matter of surprise and astonishment, that, even in the remotest colony, such uninstructed pretenders should be permitted to disgrace the healing art. If that wise principle, “salus populi suprema lex,” be correct, and I suspect it cannot be disputed, the health of the people must be a subject of the highest consideration to every government: how then are we to account for the apathy which permits such dangerous doctors to wield the destructive lance, or, how shall we explain the miscalculating policy which not only tolerates a tremendous host of empirics, but suffers them to over-run every part of the state, under the all-creating sanction of a patent, or allows them, on the bare privilege of bold assurance, to commit depredations upon the health, the purses, and the lives of His Majesty’s subjects?
In one of our late walks, near Bridge-town, we met with two small windmills, erected for the purpose of clearing the cotton from its seeds; and, as they happened to be in motion, we availed ourselves of the opportunity of waiting a short time, to witness the process. The cotton envelopes the seeds, forming the matrix in which they grow and are embedded; when pulled from the pod it is separated from them by being caused to pass through the bite of two small metallic rollers, placed horizontally, one over the other, and turned by the action of the mill. These going round, near to each other, are fed with the cotton, which they take in, without receiving the seeds, leaving them to fall to the ground, or into a basket below, while the cotton, drawn between the rollers, is ejected into a box on the opposite side. The process is so entirely simple, that it might be performed equally well by a smaller instrument worked with the hand, or the foot, and which we are told is the method practised in many of the colonies.
Among the novelties which meet the eye of an European upon his arrival in the West Indies, is the practice of carrying the children across the hip, instead of seating them upon the arm. The lower class of white women, in Barbadoes, have adopted this custom, from the example of the negroes, among whom it seems to be the universal mode of nursing. A deformed negro is a very rare object, and this may probably be attributed, in great measure, to the management of them in their infancy: they have the advantage of being allowed to crawl about upon their hands and feet at a very early age, in perfect freedom, unrestrained by ligatures, or tight garments.
Although the mode of carrying children upon the hip is the common method among the slaves, yet, when they have to take them to a great distance, they neither place them upon the hip, nor the arm, but upon the back; for which purpose a mere pocket-handkerchief, tied carelessly round the mother, often suffices.
A few evenings ago I witnessed a scene of cruelty, which strongly exemplified the abject and wretched condition to which human beings are subjected in a life of slavery. It happened that I was waiting upon the quay for the Lord Sheffield’s boat, when two men, apparently white creoles, came up, and seized a negro, who was standing near me, accusing him of having run away from his master. The poor black assured them that he had no master,—that he belonged to Mrs. ——, that he was well known in the town, and that they must, certainly, have mistaken his person! Upon these grounds he strongly urged the impropriety of their taking him to prison: but, regardless of his remonstrances, and of their own error, they tied him with a thick cord, fastened his hands, and forced him towards the place of confinement! Curiosity led me to follow them. The poor man still pleaded his innocence, and the wrong they had committed, begging and praying to be allowed to refer them to his mistress, or to another family in the town, to identify his person. Heedless of his protestations and entreaties they still dragged him on, and from his only expressing a reluctance at being thus, unjustly, hurried to a prison, one of these hardened wretches struck him a violent blow on the head, with a large stick, calling out to the other, in broad Barbadoes accent, “Daa-am him, cut him down.”
A little before they reached the prison they had to pass a door-way where there happened to be a strong light, by means of which one of these cruel instruments of the law of force instantly recognised the poor ill-treated slave, and finding that they were actually guilty of the mistake which the negro had stated, he called out to his savage comrade, who had struck the helpless black upon the head, “Daa-am him, I know the fellow, we must let him go;” upon which, they both, with dreadful imprecations, ordered him to stand, without stirring, whilst they should untie him: and, upon his only moving his arm to expedite the loosening of the cord, they swore, that if he dared “to stir, or look savage,” they would “cut him down,” or put him “directly into prison.” Such was the compensation dealt him for the unjust and cruel treatment which he had already received. The wretches not only dragged the unoffending slave to a prison, in defiance of his solemn assurances of their having erroneously seized him, and without allowing him an appeal to any one who knew his person, but, because he ventured to say they were committing an error, had the inhumanity to strike him with a force sufficient to have fractured his skull, and to threaten him with the further severity of death, or a dungeon, should he dare only to cast a look of displeasure.
What must have been the feelings of this injured man! who, after being abused and maltreated, was put in fear of his life, if he should only permit nature to assume her seat on his brow,—if the cruelty, pain, and injustice which he had suffered, should only cause a mark of disapprobation to appear upon his countenance! But nature, however proscribed, was not to be restrained by such command! While the power of memory remains to me I can never—never forget the indignant, but hopeless expression of injury which overspread the features of this poor slave, as he retired! He felt aggrieved, and was conscious that——he had no remedy,—no appeal!