Ulcers also are exceedingly common. Cuts, scratches and wounds are always neglected and may become bad ulcers; and sometimes the blood is so tainted by the diseases of vice that ulcers will not heal without internal remedies such as potassium iodide. There is abundant need of all the skill of the best equipped physician. But the majority of cases needing medical treatment are simple in the diagnosis and the treatment; for the weak and the sickly are bound to die young. Fevers, ulcers, worms, and itch are very common and cause more suffering than everything else. But any layman can do something for these. And if he is associated with a physician for a time, he can learn to do much for the relief of suffering. He can do as much as he has time to do; and knowledge grows with experience. So it was that even I, despite unusual ignorance of medicine and original ineptitude, after some years, when I was in charge of a boys’ boarding-school, treated from fifteen to twenty boys a day; for the parents were especially willing to send their sick boys; and at the end of the term there was very little sickness among them. There is much less sickness among the tribes of the interior than those at the coast. If we knew all the reasons for this we might also know why the coast tribes everywhere are dying out, many of them being now but small remnants of formerly great and powerful tribes. The coast tribes have all come from the interior, and the interior tribes to-day are all moving towards the coast. The change of climate may have been for the worse; for the strong sea-breeze alternating with the stronger land-breeze is hard on those who are not protected by clothing. The slave traffic greatly reduced the coast tribes and threatened the extinction of some of them; but it is not a reason why they should still continue to decrease. The excessive use of the white man’s rum without doubt reduces the birth-rate among coast tribes. Besides, certain diseases have been imported with the white man’s vices. And it is also possible that the greater amount of sickness and disease among coast tribes may be in part due to the better care of children among the semi-civilized people of the coast, with the result that a greater number of weak and sickly children live to maturity than in the savage life of the interior, where none but the robust are likely to survive.