ABSTRACT
If disease and death are the main objective of witchcraft and sorcery, disease is also the occasion of most religious rites, medicine the means of restoring the health of the human body and law the guarantee of the well-being of the social organism. Cleanliness and hygiene are very remotely related to health. The open-air sick-room, sunny or shady as the needs of the body dictate and protected from wind, is, in the absence of light, well-ventilated rooms, the best possible place for the health of the patient. If they are normal, healthy people suffer no discomfort themselves, but they may act as carriers of the shadow, and by contact with ill, they may transmit the evil as if they were intermediary hosts, weakening the patient and aggravating his illness. By far the most important of all causes of ill-health, however, is the evil work of witches and sorcerers.
