te worse than death, to active and comfortable life: But I have seen
too few examples of the success of this method, to be confident or
satisfied of its general utility." The language of the missionary
account is very similar and equally encouraging. "On the discontinuance
of the practice of drinking the yava, the skin of the leprous persons
soon becomes smooth and clear, and they grow fat, though few are found
who deny themselves the use of it." If drugs could remove either of
these calamities, it is certain there would be no difficulty in getting
them to be swallowed; for most men, it seems, prefer any sorts of bitter
and nauseating substances, though taken by the pound, and without
intermission, to the salutary restraints on appetite and vicious
propensities, which common sense as well as common experience so
authoritatively enjoin. It is as unjust to censure physicians for
failing to cure the gout, as it would be to censure a surgeon for the
lameness or deformity of the leg of a man, who, while under treatment
for a fracture, should make daily attempts to dance or ride on
horseback.--E.]

Where intemperance produces no diseases, there will be no physicians by
profession; yet where there is sufferance, there will always be attempts
to relieve; and where the cause of the mischief and the remedy are alike
unknown, these will naturally be directed by superstition: Thus it
happens, that in this country, and in all others which are not further
injured by luxury, or improved by knowledge, the management of the sick
falls to the lot of the priest. The method of cure that is practised by
the priests of Otaheite, consists chiefly of prayers and ceremonies.
When he visits his patient he repeats certain sentences, which appear to
be set forms contrived for the occasion, and at the same time plaits the
leaves of the cocoa-nut into different figures very neatly; some of
these he fastens to the fingers and toes of the sick, and often leaves
behind him a few branches of the the _specia populnea_, which they call
_E'midho_: These ceremonies are repeated till the patient recovers or
dies. If he recovers, they say the remedies cured him, if he dies, they
say the disease was incurable, in which perhaps they do not much differ
from the custom of other countries.[27]

[Footnote 27: Dr Hawkesworth, we see, is at loggerheads with both
priests and physicians, and spares neither. Let the respective members
of these bodies defend their craft