APRIL 23.
In my medical capacity I sometimes perform cures so unexpected, that I
stand lke Katterfelto, " with my hair standing on
end at my wonders." Last night, Alexander, the second
governor, who has been seriously ill for some days, sent me
word, that he was suffering cruelly from a pain in his head, and
could get no sleep. I knew not how to relieve him ; but having frequently
observed a violent passion for perfumes in the
house of negroes, for want of something else I gave the doctoress
some oil of lavender, and told her to rub tow or three drops
upon his nostrils. This morning, he told me that " to be sure
what I had sent him was a grand medicine indeed," for it had no
sooner touched his nose than he felt something cold run up to his
forehead, over his head, and all the way down his neck to the backbone ;
instantly, the headache left him, he fell fast asleep, nor
had the pain returned in the morning. But I am afraid, that
even this wonderful oil would fail of curing a complaint upon
which I have just been consulted. A poor old creature, named
Quasheba, made her appearance at my breakfast-table, and told
me, " that she was almost eighty, had been rather weakly for
some time past, and somehow she did not feel by any means
right." " Had she seen the doctor ? Did she want physic ? "
" No, she had taken too much physic already, and the doctor
would do her no good ; she did not want to see the doctor."
" But what then was her complaint ? " " Oh! she had no
particular complaint; only she was old and weakly, and did not
find herself by any means so well as she used to be, and so she
came just to tell massa, and see what he could do to make her
quite right again, that was all." In short, she
only wanted me
to make her young again!
