OF THE DISEASES AND CURES OF THE INDIANS.

§ 41. The Indians are not subject to many diseases; and such as they have, generally come from excessive heats and sudden colds, which they as suddenly get away by sweating. But if the humor happen to fix, and make a pain in any particular joint, or limb, their general cure then is by burning, if it be in any part that will bear it; their method of doing this is by little sticks of lightwood, the coal of which will burn like a hot iron; the sharp point of this they run into the flesh, and having made a sore, keep it running till the humor be drawn off; or else they take punk, (which is a sort of soft touchwood, cut out of the knots of oak or hickory trees, but the hickory affords the best,) this they shape like a cone, (as the Japanese do their moxa for the gout,) and apply the basis of it to the place affected. Then they set fire to it, letting it burn out upon the part, which makes a running sore effectually.

They use sucking in sores frequently, and scarifying, which, like the Mexicans, they perform with a rattlesnake's tooth. They seldom cut deeper than the epidermis, by which means they give passage to those sharp waterish humors that lie between the two skins, and cause inflammations. Sometimes they make use of reeds for cauterizing, which they heat over the fire, till they are ready to flame, and then apply them upon a piece of thin wet leather to the place aggrieved, which makes the heat more piercing.

Their priests are always physicians, and by the method of their education in the priesthood, are made very knowing in the hidden qualities of plants and other natural things, which they count a part of their religion to conceal from everybody, but from those that are to succeed them in their holy function. They tell us their god will be angry with them if they should discover that part of their knowledge; so they suffer only the rattlesnake root to be known, and such other antidotes, as must be immediately applied, because their doctors can't be always at hand to remedy those sudden misfortunes which generally happen in their hunting or traveling.

They call their physic wisoccan, not from the name of any particular root or plant, but as it signifies medicine in general. So that Heriot, De Bry, Smith, Purchase and De Laet, seem all to be mistaken in the meaning of this word wighsacan, which they make to be the name of a particular root; and so is Parkinson in the word woghsacan, which he will have to be the name of a plant. Nor do I think there is better authority for applying the word wisank to the plant vincetoxicum indianum germanicum, or winank to the sassafras tree.

The physic of the Indians consists for the most part in the roots and barks of trees, they very rarely using the leaves either of herbs or trees; what they give inwardly, they infuse in water, and what they apply outwardly, they stamp or bruise, adding water to it, if it has not moisture enough of itself; with the thin of this they bath the part affected, then lay on the thick, after the manner of a poultice, and commonly dress round, leaving the sore place bare.

§ 42. They take great delight in sweating, and therefore in every town they have a sweating house, and a doctor is paid by the public to attend it. They commonly use this to refresh themselves, after they have been fatigued with hunting, travel, or the like, or else when they are troubled with agues, aches, or pains in their limbs. Their method is thus: the doctor takes three or four large stones, which after having heated red hot, he places them in the middle of the stove, laying on them some of the inner bark of oak beaten in a mortar, to keep them from burning. This being done, they creep in six or eight at a time, or as many as the place will hold, and then close up the mouth of the stove, which is usually made like an oven, in some bank near the water side. In the meanwhile the doctor to raise a steam, after they have been stewing a little while, pours cold water on the stones, and now and then sprinkles the men to keep them from fainting. After they have sweat as long as they can well endure it, they sally out, and (though it be in the depth of winter) forthwith plunge themselves over head and ears in cold water, which instantly closes up the pores, and preserves them from taking cold. The heat being thus suddenly driven from the extreme parts to the heart, makes them a little feeble for the present, but their spirits rally again, and they instantly recover their strength, and find their joints as supple and vigorous as if they never had traveled, or been indisposed. So that I may say as Bellonius does in his observations on the Turkish bagnio's, all the crudities contracted in their bodies are by this means evaporated and carried off. The Muscovites and Finlanders are said to use this way of sweating also. "It is almost a miracle," says Olearius, "to see how their bodies, accustomed to and hardened by cold, can endure so intense a heat, and how that when they are not able to endure it longer, they come out of the stoves as naked as they were born, both men and women, and plunge into cold water, or cause it to be poured on them." Trav. into Musc., I, 3, page 67.

The Indians also pulverize the roots of a kind of anchusa, or yellow alkanet, which they call puccoon, and of a sort of wild angelica, and mixing them together with bear's oil, make a yellow ointment, with which, after they have bathed, they anoint themselves Capapee; this supples the skin, renders them nimble and active, and withal so closes up the pores, that they lose but few of their spirits by perspiration. Piso relates the same of the Brazilians; and my Lord Bacon asserts, that oil and fat things do no less conserve the substance of the body, than oil-colors and varnish do that of the wood.

They have also a farther advantage of this ointment; for it keeps all lice, fleas, and other troublesome vermin from coming near them; which otherwise, by reason of the nastiness of their cabins, they would be very much infested with.

Smith talks of this puccoon, as if it only grew on the mountains, whereas it is common to all the plantations of the English, now on the land frontiers.