Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly.

Jamaica. Central Board of Health

Date:: 1852

Credit: Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

468/594 (page 158)

$plexy. ont] lastly, the recent pestilence of cholera.-^ As the registers now stand, 1 place little or no value upon either or any of them, because Jaulti/. *'1he reiii.ster oi births and deaths, kept in the office of the clerk of the common council, has become obsolete, Tlie reasons are assij^ned in answer twelve. No. !4. This question applies chiefly to imral dis- tricts ; one of the greatest pecuniary encumbrances to some, perhaps to all parislies, is the desertion and abandonsnent by the male of his offspring—I mean these that are the result of the illicit intercourse of the sexes. JNo. 15. Certairdy not; but a little is to be found, now and then, in love afluijs, as the records of our police office and the court of quarter sessions occa- sionally disclose ; nevertheless it is my conviction that both stili continue to be practised in most of the a«77fM//wr«/ districts, (J speakctdvisedly,) and that the negro j)opuIation generally, but particularly the peasantry, are unchanged in their feelings as to the power and influence of this species of magic, or witch- craft. All llie efforts of their pastors to eradicate, by moral and religious instruction, and discourses, the belief in, and the dread of, tiiis remnant of African bar- barism, have failed. The female natives of Hayti are adepts in the art. And woe be unto that unfortunate wight who happens to be the object of their jealousy or revenge, the consequences are most distressing— o^tew fatal. Their rnacmidals' are gv^utirally com- posed of the teeth of various animals, of hair, feathersi 'coAvries, or jeggays, bits of glassj &c. &c. Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of doji^, AddeTs's fork and blind worms',sting, Lizzard's kg and owlet's \ving. These are sometimes introduced into a glove an4 placed in the bed of the victim ; at others, some of these articles is administered by mixing thera with the sou|5 tor other aliment^ condiments for a '* hell brot^U '-r$