ABSTRACT
It is impossible to consider the intimately associated subjects of medicine and magic except in conjunction with each other. Before the arrival of the Europeans, bringing with them vaccination, smallpox used to take a heavy toll of the people. The BaVenda practised a rude vaccine treatment of their own. Nearly every medicine shows the influence of the homoeopathic conception. It was quite impossible in short stay among the BaVenda to obtain more than a few examples of their treatment of disease, but perhaps these few, collected from three or four different practitioners, will give some idea of the value of their prescriptions and of the mental attitude of both doctor and patient in the treatment and cure of disease. Powerful medicine-men have often seen them engaged in weird happenings which they describe to clients, thereby increasing their own prestige.
