DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11638#0228
20& TKAVLLS VSt UPPER
face, and they arc like them retired and cloistered
up in their houses. I have sometimes been con-
ducted, in my quality of physician, by a priest of
their nation, or by an European monk, to the midst
of an assembly of these women. They only spoke
through a mask, and I never knew whether my
patient was old or young. To feel the pulse, I
was presented with a hand and a wrist well wrap-
ped up, and the place was only left bare where 1
was to apply my fingers to the artery. Was it ex-
pedient to let blood ? Oh ! this was altogether an-
other ceremony. They insisted that I should only
see the bending of the arm ; and I was obliged to
wait fretting myself, till they had uncovered the
fore part of it. If any of these women was disor-
dered in the eyes, or had any other local complaint,
it was expected that I should cure them without
examining the eyes, or the seat of the disease ; and
I always left these haunts of insipidity, my mind
filled with indignation at priests, who, far from
seeking to unfold the germs of reason, extinguished
its feeblest light, provided you were religious ac-
cording to their mode, that is to say, guided by su-
perstition, and, above all, by a thorough devoted-
ness to their will, which, audacious profaners,
they had the effrontery to declare as the will of the
Deity.
The
face, and they arc like them retired and cloistered
up in their houses. I have sometimes been con-
ducted, in my quality of physician, by a priest of
their nation, or by an European monk, to the midst
of an assembly of these women. They only spoke
through a mask, and I never knew whether my
patient was old or young. To feel the pulse, I
was presented with a hand and a wrist well wrap-
ped up, and the place was only left bare where 1
was to apply my fingers to the artery. Was it ex-
pedient to let blood ? Oh ! this was altogether an-
other ceremony. They insisted that I should only
see the bending of the arm ; and I was obliged to
wait fretting myself, till they had uncovered the
fore part of it. If any of these women was disor-
dered in the eyes, or had any other local complaint,
it was expected that I should cure them without
examining the eyes, or the seat of the disease ; and
I always left these haunts of insipidity, my mind
filled with indignation at priests, who, far from
seeking to unfold the germs of reason, extinguished
its feeblest light, provided you were religious ac-
cording to their mode, that is to say, guided by su-
perstition, and, above all, by a thorough devoted-
ness to their will, which, audacious profaners,
they had the effrontery to declare as the will of the
Deity.
The