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The machis are a superstitious class, or pretenders to sorcery, and allege that all diseases proceed from witchcraft, and pretend therefore to cure them by supernatural means, for which reason they are employed in desperate cases, when the exertions of the ampives and vileus have proved ineffectual; They have likewise a kind of surgeons, called gutarve; who are skilful in replacing luxations, setting fractured bones, and curing wounds and ulcers.
Their verses are mostly composed in stanzas of eight or eleven syllables, and are for the most part blank, yet rhyme is occasionally introduced, according to the taste or caprice of the poet. They have three kinds of physicians. Of these the ampives, who are skilful herbalists, are the best, and have even some skill in the pulse and other diagnostics of disease.
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