aspect of medical treatment which counted most in popular estimation. The medical priest would often apply suction to the seat of pain, and then produce triumphantly from his mouth some small object, such as an obsidian knife, which he pretended to have extracted from the patient's body. Amulets were frequently worn to banish maladies, especially in the case of children, and many ointments contained ingredients the effect of which was purely imaginary, though the massage which accompanied their application had no doubt a beneficial effect. One such medicament consisted of certain herbs, including tobacco, pounded up with the bodies of various insects, and this was also applied to the body as a protection against poisonous snakes and other wild animals. The idea that sickness could be removed by transferring it to another person was found in Mexico as in many other parts of the world; in cases of fever the image of a dog would be made of maize dough, and placed on an aloe-leaf in a pathway, and it was believed that the first passer-by would remove the malady in his heel-bones. A remedy which was of almost universal application, and which was of real value, was the steam-bath. The patient was introduced into a small brick-built chamber which had a furnace constructed at one side. Between the furnace and the chamber was a slab of the volcanic stone called tezontli, upon which water was poured to produce steam. This building was called temazcalli in Mexico, but the treatment is not peculiar to this area, being found elsewhere in America also. According to Burgoa, among the Zapotec, persons who felt themselves incurably sick would ask to be shut up in a chamber in the holy city of Mitla reserved for the bodies of sacrificial victims and captains killed in war. Here they were left to perish, secure in the knowledge that their lot in the other world would be far superior to that in this.
To the Mexicans, as to many primitive peoples, death
