All who have studied the medical lore of primitive and ancient civilizations agree with Hewitt (18, 21st, p. 134) and Fewkes (ibid. P. 15), to quote only the latter, that " primitive man regards everything as possessed of magic power allied with what we call life, capable of action for good or evil." This magic power as we have seen has been, in the animistic stage, spiritualized so that we are prepared to find with Bartels that in answer to the question, "What is sickness? " one gets, from the primitive man the ready answer that sickness is the influence of evil or ill-disposed spirits.
The words in which this answer would be given might to the uninitiated confer quite a different impression, but would on careful study be found to mean nothing else. To illustrate the various ways in which this same fundamental idea would be expressed by different tribes, and even by different members of the same tribe, we can do no better than condense the exhaustive and extremely suggestive outline of Bartels. (2, pp. 49-72.) He suggests four common ways in which the evil spirit itself is the direct cause of sickness: 1. Sickness is a demon or it may be several demons; 2. The angry spirit of some deceased person; 3. The spirit of some animal; 4. A vampire or werewolf. In thus causing sickness the evil spirit may enter the body of its own accord; by direction of a witch or magician; by permission or at the command of the gods as a curse or punishment for wrongdoing; by transfer from another person through the use of contagious magic. Again the ill-disposed spirit may make an external attack upon a person or may assume human form to make such attack; it may steal away one's shadow, breath, lifeblood, or some vital organ; or by introducing into the victim's body some foreign object it may effect its evil purposes.
The last of these views is very common and takes many strange forms. To enumerate only a few: disease is often caused by the presence in the body of something animate; as, a worm or other animal. Frequently the trouble is due to some inanimate body, visible or invisible, which is to be found on or in the body of the patient or the particular part affected. Within these two classes almost every conceivable object has been considered a cause. No purely physical agent, however, is ever sufficient in itself as an explanation to the primitive man. Each ailment is without exception dependent in some way upon the presence (possession) or action of some spirit.
Miracles of Healing
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By Charles W. Waddle (1909)
Primitive Christian Worship
Hereditary genius
