Browse:Doctor Assists Death (Volume 1, entries 913)
Doctor Assists Death
Volume 1, entries 913. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → Consultation Technique. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 913
I married my first wife and of course I didn't know she had an enemy, and me and her was coming down the road. So we walked along talking. It was a path that lead to the house from the road, and opposite that path she slapped me on the shoulder and said, "oh, French, somebody done tricked me." And I said, "Go away, woman - who in the Name of God done anything to you?" She said, "I am tricked." She went away from here with the same thing. [The slapping makes me assume that she had a sudden and unusual pain which frightened her; this sudden pain while walking usually caused by passing over a cunjured object - see Burying objects, in Index.] I'll tell you what happened. It was the second week in August. I worked along and worked along and worked along. Finally I had to go to the doctor for her. The doctor said that she had the stomach trouble. I worked and done every way I could. Finally, I sent her to the hospital in Washington, [D. C.]. They worked on her and worked on her there. I told her when she left home, don't let them operate on her. Finally then, she came back home, I says to her, "Fannie, how do you feel?" She said, "French, I don't feel no better." I said, "What did the doctor and nurses say?" 'The doctor said I had stomach trouble and he had to operate on her [me]." One of the nurses told her, 'I could tell you what's the matter with you but we ain't allowed." So she came home on a Friday night and then I went down in the country about twenty some miles on Sunday morning. I seen a man, a hoodoo doctor, and he give me some little packages, three of them, and told me what to do with them. And I came home and done just as he told me on a Monday morning. On Wednesday she died. I don't know what was in these packages. In one of them I couldn't see nuthin but a bunch of roots. He told me to put that on in a pint and a half of water and boil it down to a pint. After boiling it down to a pint, you set it off and let it get cool, then give her three tablespoonfuls before meals. He gave me a package to throw over my left shoulder. I made the tea and give her the first dose, and go right on to running water and throw it over my left shoulder. I did so. He gave me a little pocket piece and told me to give her and carry in her pocket. It was a little package all tied up. That was the third year after the Johnstown [Pennsylvania] flood [May 31, 18891, in this [Spotsylvania] county. I went down in Caroline [County, Virginia] to get the hoodoo doctor.