Barbadoes, March 1796.
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!