Clinical memoranda : memoranda of medical clinic at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1869-1870 / by Joseph Jones. The yellow fever, sanitary condition, and vital statistics of New Orleans during its military occupation, the four years, 1862-5 / by Stanford E. Chaillé.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
[1871?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical memoranda : memoranda of medical clinic at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1869-1870 / by Joseph Jones. The yellow fever, sanitary condition, and vital statistics of New Orleans during its military occupation, the four years, 1862-5 / by Stanford E. Chaillé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    suddenly induced in a state*of health, by an aged negress who practiced witchcraft. After death it was found that blood-vessels had been ruptured, and blood extra vacated into the grey matter arid nervous struc- tures of the optic thalami and corpora striata. The patient was a large stout old woman, apparently near seventy years of age, and the ruptured blood-vessels were found to be degenerated, having undergone fatty degeneration. It is possible that the rupture of the blood-vessels may have been the result of some unusual men- tal or physical effort. As the practice of sorcery and witchcraft amongst the negroes in certain sections of the South, is thought to have been revived and extended since the war, we reproduce one of the fullest and most accurate accounts of the superstitious practices of the ne- groes. The following very curious account of the extraordinary super- stition of the African race, was transmitted .by the agent of Ja- maica to the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council, and by them subjoined to their report on the slave trade j and it is said to have been the result of the dilligent researches and accurate pen of Mr. Long. The term Obeah, Obiah, or Obi-*, (for it i9 variously written), we conceive to be the ad- jective, and Obe or Obi the noun substantive ; and that by the word Obia—men or women, are meant, those who practice Obi. The origin of the term wo should consider as of no importance in our answer to the questions proposed, if, in seaichof it, we were not led to disquisitions that are highly gratifying to curiosity. From the learned Mr. Bryant's * Commentary upon the word Oph, we obtain a very p obable etymology of the term.—A serpent in the Egyptian language was called Ob or Aub—Obion is still the Eg\ ptian name for a serpent.—Moses, in the name of God, forbids the Israelites ever to inquire of the demon Ob which is translated in our Bible, Charmer or Wizard. Divinator and Sorcilegus.— The woman at Endor is called Oub or Ob, translated Pythonissa; and Obbaios (he cites from Horus Apollo) was the name of the Basilisk or Itoyal Serpent, emblem of the suu, and an ancient oracular Deity of Africa. This derivation, which applies to one particular sect, tho remnant probably of a very celebrated religious order in remote ages, is now become in Ja- maica the general term to denote those Africans who in that island practice witchcraft or sorcery, comprehending also the class of what are called Myal-men, or those who, by means of a narcotic potion, made with the juice of an heib (said to be the branched Valalue or species of Solarium) which occasions a trance or profound sleep of a certain duration, en- deavor to convince the deluded spectators of their power to re-animate dead bodies. As far as we are able to decide from our own experience and information, when wo lived in the Island, and from the current testimony of all the negroes we have ever con- versed wilh on the subject, the professors of Obi are, and always were, natives of Africa, and none other; and they have brought the science with them from thence to Jamaica, where it is so universally practiced, that we believe that there are few of the large estates possessing native Africans, which have not one or more of them. The oldest and most crafty are those who usually attract the greatest devotion and confidence; those whoso hoary heads, and somewhat peculiary harsh and forbidding aspect, together with some skill in plants of the medicinal and poisonous species have qualified them for successful imposition upon the weak and credulous, The negroes in general, whether Africans or Creoles, revere, consult and fear them; to these oracles they resort, and with the most implicit faith, upon all occasions, whether for the cure of disorders, the obtaining revenge for injuries or insults, the conciliating of favors, the discovery and punishment of * Mythology, vol. 1, pages 48, 475 and 478.