Practical Medical Advice for Female Subjects of the Cape Colony
By Karen Jennings
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Should you find yourself as one of the enslaved in a private home at the Cape, beaten for insolence, or for burning the beans, or any other such infraction, take care to call on the snuff shop of freedwoman Jamilla van de Kaap in one of the unnamed side alleys on the slopes of Table Mountain. You will know the place by the signboard in her backyard. There is no need to show her your wounds. As such, should they prevent you from visiting her yourself, send only a messenger with a note requesting Caijpoetij olij, from the tree grown in Malaysia, that place from which many of the colony’s slaves have been captured. Clean your wounds with the oil in order to prevent infection. For pain, take a few drops in water or rum.
Those women who are kept within the confines of the Company’s Slave Lodge and serve the visiting sailors during the open hour of 8 and 9 at night, must report to the Lodge’s mother or matron slave should they think themselves infected with the pox. Give plentiful details when describing your symptoms that the correct cure be administered. Watch as she crushes quicksilver and black cumin, adds paddy, then crushes the mixture a second time in the juice of Bristle Byrony leaves. For a third time it must be crushed, now adding the juice of Acalypha Indica leaves. She may have some already prepared, preserved through burial in the earth. Sip in equal parts for five successive days. Only return to your nightly duties after this period has passed.
Slavewomen in the outlying districts of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, those with a jealous lover who boasts an angry temper and a large knife, will do well to remember to call for Maria Buisset with their dying breath. This licensed midwife and unlicensed surgeon, who practices nonetheless having learnt at the side of her surgeon husband, will be a significant witness in the subsequent trial. “I, the undersigned, acknowledge and declare [add relevant details here regarding your master’s name and that of his farm] and found there a certain slave girl [insert your name here] badly wounded, that is to say, with a stab about three fingers broad above the navel, below the stomach internally the depth of five fingers, and externally the length of three fingers, that it hung a good quarter out of the wound, and also that the inside flesh of the panniculum had been penetrated, all of which I am prepared to confirm by solemn oath if need be.” For this crime, the lover will be flogged and sentenced to two years in chains.
Now, those ladies amongst you who marry settler farmers and find yourselves even further out, deep into the northern frontier, with no neighbours in close range, no medical men, no midwives, and a baby struggling to be born, should request that husband, slave, servant, or child be sent out into the veld to beseech any old women from one of the Namaqua tribes to come to your aid. These women, despite the dirt that clings to them, know the virtues of herbs and roots. Drink the concoction she gives you, most likely one of fine tobacco sieved into milk. This potion will speed up the delivery or evacuate the dead foetus. Many a mother’s life has been saved by means of this desperate action, though it is better to avoid these creatures on all other occasions.
For the fine lady, she who suffers from a similar ailment in childbirth, yet has the fortune of being in Cape Town and having the best medical officers at hand, ask the governor to request the assistance of that well-known but notoriously foul-tempered character, Dr Barry. Permit him to perform an intimate examination without feeling shame, and then to execute the Empire’s first caesarean section on a living mother and child. Enjoy your subsequent fame. Name your son after the good doctor in gratitude. Make no mention of his gentle touch, his smooth cheeks, his high-pitched voice. Years later, when the doctor dies, autopsy revealing him to have been a woman, act as surprised as those around you. Pretend you had no inkling of such deceit. Write to your adult son at once, tell him the news as though it were a shock. Do not consider the fact that for generations your descendants will still carry the name of James Barry with pride, or that one of them will serve as Prime Minister of South Africa. He will fiercely promote and defend Afrikaner culture, declare Nazism to be a system his country needs to emulate. Do not think about this strange curling of history, the way it turns towards progress in surprising moments and then veers towards something else. Write with love to your darling child, your boy who might have died. Seal the letter. Remember the doctor’s soft hands, her sympathetic eyes.
Those women who are kept within the confines of the Company’s Slave Lodge and serve the visiting sailors during the open hour of 8 and 9 at night, must report to the Lodge’s mother or matron slave should they think themselves infected with the pox. Give plentiful details when describing your symptoms that the correct cure be administered. Watch as she crushes quicksilver and black cumin, adds paddy, then crushes the mixture a second time in the juice of Bristle Byrony leaves. For a third time it must be crushed, now adding the juice of Acalypha Indica leaves. She may have some already prepared, preserved through burial in the earth. Sip in equal parts for five successive days. Only return to your nightly duties after this period has passed.
Slavewomen in the outlying districts of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, those with a jealous lover who boasts an angry temper and a large knife, will do well to remember to call for Maria Buisset with their dying breath. This licensed midwife and unlicensed surgeon, who practices nonetheless having learnt at the side of her surgeon husband, will be a significant witness in the subsequent trial. “I, the undersigned, acknowledge and declare [add relevant details here regarding your master’s name and that of his farm] and found there a certain slave girl [insert your name here] badly wounded, that is to say, with a stab about three fingers broad above the navel, below the stomach internally the depth of five fingers, and externally the length of three fingers, that it hung a good quarter out of the wound, and also that the inside flesh of the panniculum had been penetrated, all of which I am prepared to confirm by solemn oath if need be.” For this crime, the lover will be flogged and sentenced to two years in chains.
Now, those ladies amongst you who marry settler farmers and find yourselves even further out, deep into the northern frontier, with no neighbours in close range, no medical men, no midwives, and a baby struggling to be born, should request that husband, slave, servant, or child be sent out into the veld to beseech any old women from one of the Namaqua tribes to come to your aid. These women, despite the dirt that clings to them, know the virtues of herbs and roots. Drink the concoction she gives you, most likely one of fine tobacco sieved into milk. This potion will speed up the delivery or evacuate the dead foetus. Many a mother’s life has been saved by means of this desperate action, though it is better to avoid these creatures on all other occasions.
For the fine lady, she who suffers from a similar ailment in childbirth, yet has the fortune of being in Cape Town and having the best medical officers at hand, ask the governor to request the assistance of that well-known but notoriously foul-tempered character, Dr Barry. Permit him to perform an intimate examination without feeling shame, and then to execute the Empire’s first caesarean section on a living mother and child. Enjoy your subsequent fame. Name your son after the good doctor in gratitude. Make no mention of his gentle touch, his smooth cheeks, his high-pitched voice. Years later, when the doctor dies, autopsy revealing him to have been a woman, act as surprised as those around you. Pretend you had no inkling of such deceit. Write to your adult son at once, tell him the news as though it were a shock. Do not consider the fact that for generations your descendants will still carry the name of James Barry with pride, or that one of them will serve as Prime Minister of South Africa. He will fiercely promote and defend Afrikaner culture, declare Nazism to be a system his country needs to emulate. Do not think about this strange curling of history, the way it turns towards progress in surprising moments and then veers towards something else. Write with love to your darling child, your boy who might have died. Seal the letter. Remember the doctor’s soft hands, her sympathetic eyes.
Karen Jennings is a South African author whose novel 'An Island' was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. Her most recent novel, Crooked Seeds, came out in 2024. She is currently writer-in-residence as a post-doctoral fellow at the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa's Past (LEAP), Stellenbosch University, South Africa, where she explores history through fiction. Karen is also co-founder of The Island Prize for Debut African Novels.