Memoirs of a Captivity Among the Indians of North America, by John Dunn Hunter; 3rd edition (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Ohme, Brown, & Green, 1824)
-----
p. 436
CHAP. XIX.
A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSIC AMONG SEVERAL TRIBES OF THE WESTERN INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA, WHO RESIDE ON THE WATERS OF THE MISSOURI AND MISSISSIPPI.--(IN A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR TO DR. HENRY W. DUCHACHET, OF NEW YORK.)
My dear Sir,
When I promised you to furnish a paper for your interesting medical recorder, my engagements were such, that an immediate compliance was impracticable. Having more leisure at present, I perform now with much pleasure, what I then promised; with no other disagreeable sensation, however, than what arises from my inability to do the subject more justice.
The Indians, being without the advantages of science, deduce most of their medical principles from experience; but, in some cases, they refer them to miraculous and mysterious powers. For example, acidity of the stomach is readily relieved by eating a few grains of corn which have been steeped in ley, or by swallowing some of the absorbent earths which abound on the banks of many of their rivers. Blood-letting, in their inflammatory complaints, is equally beneficial, and is considerably used. But their employment of the former does not arise from their acquaintance with the principles of chemistry, nor is their use of the latter ascribable to their knowledge of physiology. These remedies are entirely the re-
-----
p. 437
sults of experience; and when new diseases make their appearance among them, they necessarily have recourse to experiments to find a method of cure, and when these fail, they ascribe the maladies to enchantment, and rely only on supernatural agency for their relief. The office of a physician is very respectable among some tribes; among others, the profession is practised only by the old squaws. Among others, the men attend to the diseases of the males, and particularly in surgical cases; while the squaws attend to those of the female sex. In going to the bed side of his patient, an Indian physician examines the tongue, feels the breast, the hands, and the feet, assumes a solemn look, and says little. Having determined on the nature of the case, he appoints one of the friends as the nurse, who is strictly forbidden to permit any one to converse with the sick person, or even to enter the apartment. These nurses are generally relations of the patient; and the office usually falls to the lot of the old squaws, who are very attentive and well qualified for the duty. Their remedies are, for the most part, extremely simple and harmless in ordinary cases; consisting chiefly of warm infusions, powdered barks, roots, and leaves. In accordance with their universal practice of following nature in their habits and pursuits, they observe her indications in the choice of remedies. They proportion their doses to the diseases they have to encounter, and are very apt to give too large quantities. This is particularly the case with regard to purging, which is frequently attended with the most tormenting pains, loss of blood, and great prostration of
-----
p. 438
strength. In their febrile diseases, they make the state of the skin and bowels the guide by which to regulate their practice. When the skin assumes a moisture for a considerable length of time, becomes less hot and dry, and the thirst ceases, they say there is then no danger. And when the discharges from the bowels become less offensive to the sense of smell, and change their colour, and the tongue becomes clean, they stop purging and sweating. If there is great debility, they commence giving tonic medicines, which are commonly bitters, consisting of herbs, roots, and barks. Should these induce costiveness or a return of the fever, purging and sweating are again resorted to. After these general remarks, I proceed to an account of particular diseases.
Dropsy.--This is a disease rarely seen among those Indians who live at a remote distance from civilized settlements; but those who have become intemperate by their intercourse with the whites, frequently become dropsical. The rheumatism, and other acute diseases, sometimes terminate fatally in dropsy. Sometimes they succeed in curing the latter symptom, and then the patient recovers from the original disease. I have known several of their women to die with dropsy of the whole system, which followed fever, taken from exposure to cold, hunger, and fatigue. Indeed, most cases of this complaint, which I have witnessed, occurred in subjects who, either by exposure to want, inclement weather, or great intemperance, had become greatly debilitated. As far as I have been able to witness the symptoms constituting dropsy among the Indians, they are
-----
p. 439
about the following:--Uncommon dryness of the skin, considerable thirst, indisposition to move from one place to another, collections of water either over the whole system, or in particular parts, according as there may be general or local affections producing it. I have seen some dropsical cases, where the subject had been afflicted with general disease, such as fever; and in those cases which follow rheumatic complaints, the joints are more particularly the seat of the disease. There is no one disease among the Indians, for the cure of which they make more experiments. They commonly commence with an emetic, which they give in small nauseating doses, so as to make the patient extremely sick. This nausea they keep up for a considerable time, so as to relax and enfeeble the patient to a great degree. During this enfeebled state, they discharge large quantities of water, especially when purging comes on; and such are the debilitating effects of this evacuation, that they frequently faint. They do not always resort to this harsh treatment; but those who are thus treated are generally compensated for their sufferings by great subsequent relief. This operation is repeated as often as the state of the patient requires it, and is commonly followed by sweating, which is usually carried to as great an extent as the former remedy. Sweating is effected by means of the sweat-oven, and by internal and external sudorifics. Their mode of sweating, without the sweat-oven, is to give warm infusions very liberally, and to cover the patient up very closely. When they are able to walk, the former method is always resorted to; and, as the sweat-
-----
p. 440
ing-place is generally a considerable distance form the village, they are frequently carried to it in blankets by their friends. Here, placed on a mat, the patient sits enveloped in a vapour arising from water poured on hot stones and plants of different kinds, whose virtues are supposed to unite and ascend with the vapour. Sweating teas are taken freely during the patient's continuance in the oven, where he remains till the perspiration ceases to flow: the debility induced by this treatment is sometimes so great, as to make them faint, and experience the most unpleasant feelings; which, however, followed by proper treatment, generally have a happy effect. The patient often comes out several pounds lighter than he went in: he is then wrapt in a blanket, or buffalo robe, to prevent his taken cold, and is thus conveyed home.
Burnt bones and shells powdered, with bitter barks of various kinds, are much given in this complaint. Another of their popular remedies is, a decoction of the root and leaves of the sumach, with sour-wood leaves and wild-cherry bark. This is given cold freely three or four times a day. In this decoction they occasionally put a quantity of a certain mineral substance very similar to copperas, which they obtain from the cliffs and banks of rivers, and which exists in great abundance in that region. This medicine, thus prepared, operates powerfully on the urinary system, and at the same time is a valuable tonic. Under the direction of a skilful physician, I am persuaded it would prove highly useful. I have seldom seen dropsy in an Indian under forty years of age; and
-----
p. 441
those who have it when much older than this, seldom recover. The typhus fever, as it is called by the physicians who lived on the frontier settlements, was, in several instances, followed by dropsy of the whole system, and this, too, independently of the abuse of spirituous liquors. In cases of collections of water in the abdomen and about the large joints, the application of tobacco leaves is one of their most common remedies. But in its action it produces the most distressing sickness, accompanied with giddiness, vomiting, and dimness of sight. These symptoms, after continuing five or six hours, are generally followed by a comfortable sleep, which considerably abates the disease. It is deserving of remark, however, that the disease is very liable to return after it has completely disappeared. Accordingly, the Indians say they can cure any dropsical person with tobacco leaves externally, but they cannot make him stay cured. A bulbous-rooted plant, called by the Indians Yellow-root, is one of great value in this complaint. Indeed, as it combines in no inconsiderable degree, general tonic virtues, and specific evacuant powers upon the urinary organs, it is applicable in a large number of cases of dropsy. I have known the sanguinaria (blood-root), in combination with sarsaparilla and the magnolia, given in large draughts three or four times a day, to be of some good effect in dropsy. But the Indians do not place so much confidence in it, as in the above-mentioned remedies. Friction of the swelled parts with rough skins is an external remedy, which, I believe, has its advantages in some cases. It is used by them. The purges they employ, I rather think,
-----
p. 442
do more injury than benefit, by the extreme debility they induce. They are apt to create great derangement in the stomach and bowels, and not unfrequently carry off the unhappy subject with an incurable diarrhœa. This I have known to be the case among the Shawanees, a tribe settled upon the river Maramee. [sic] The May-apple ([P]odophyllum peltatum) is one of their most fashionable purgatives; and the black-root is one resorted to only in desperate cases. A very small quantity of this last, perhaps five or six grains, will sometimes act with great violence, and is even dangerous. It frequently produces horrible griping, and a copious discharge of blood from the bowels.
Syphilis, the Indians say, was entirely unknown among them until they contracted it from the whites. It prevails among several of the tribes with which I am acquainted, and proves one of their most troublesome and virulent disorders. Those who go among the populous white settlements on the Missouri and Mississippi, where the disease prevails in its most inveterate forms among the traders and boatmen who navigate the river to New Orleans, frequently return to their families and tribes infected with it. It often assumes a most distressing train of symptoms before the emaciated sufferer is aware of his situation. In the treatment of this disorder, they usually begin with teas and warm diuretic infusions; they drink decoctions of the roots of rushes, sumach leaves, and golden-root, as the frontier- settlers call it, and which I suspect to be the sarsaparilla of the shops. They also use a little creeping vine, which bears a great number of small white blossoms and seed; cups of a
-----
p. 443
triangular shape, about the size of buck-wheat. This plant grows in rich places near water-courses, and supports itself by running on the shrubbery and bushes within its reach. I am persuaded it deserves a distinguished place in the Materia Medica. Its medicinal effects are profusely diuretic without producing nausea, or any unpleasant sensation, except a feeling of fulness somewhat similar to that after partaking too freely of water-melons. From its bitterness and other sensible properties, I have no doubt that its action extends generally to the whole system.
Another plant, which is in considerable repute among the Indians for the cure of the malady in question, is the white plantain. This they give in infusion. Whether it deserves the character they give it or not, I cannot say; though I believe it has some virtue as a diuretic. They give the warm tea three or four times a day, in large draughts. I do not say it has any anti-syphilitic properties. I merely know that they give it in such cases, and mention that fact without remark. Wild liquorice tea, and a tea of the anise-root, are also given as a part of the diet of the patient. Great abstinence is imposed on the Indians in the cure of all their diseases, but especially in this. If, however, they have a strong desire or craving for any particular article of diet, it is viewed as a favourable symptom, and is always indulged. The friends of the sufferer will spare no pains to procure it for him. They often travel many days' journey for this purpose.
Asthma.--When we consider the hardships the
-----
p. 444
Indians undergo, it is not surprising that they should be subject to asthma. This is not an unfrequent disease among them. Their remedies are blisterings, fomentations, and anodynes. There is, perhaps, no complaint, in which Indian remedies are more successfully employed. They use the sweat-oven, as before described, with great success. Sometimes relief is obtained by the application of small bags of wet ashes upon the breast; and sometimes by inhaling the steams arising from water poured upon hot stones, and herbs of various kinds. But by far the most valuable remedy ever used among them for the cure of this distressing complaint, is a small plant, wesh-ke-nah. This plant somewhat resembles the common flax, though it is more branched, and not linty like the latter. An infusion of it, roots and tops together, in doses of half a pint, at intervals of twenty minutes, till relief is obtained, is the usual mode of administering it. In a short time its beneficial operation is perceivable by a gentle moisture on the skin, more easy respiration, ability to lie in a recumbent posture, &c. Shortly after a more copious sweating comes on, attended with an expectoration of phlegm or mucus, and entire relief from pain. The patient now falls into a comfortable sleep, from which he awakes free from his disease. Thus have I seen these untutored followers of Esculapius subdue some of the worst cases of asthma.
I have known PULMONARY CONSUMPTION to occur among the Indians. It is rarely seen, however, except in those addicted to intemperance; and even
-----
p. 445
in these it is by no means so common as among the whites. It is worthy of notice, that females are not so subject to the disease as the males are. I have never known it to affect a personal before puberty, and very seldom under twenty years of age. It appears, in far the greater number, between the ages of twenty and forty years. They commence their cure by emetics, from a warm infusion of the Indian physic, or gillenia trifoliata, in doses of a wine-glass full every fifteen or twenty minutes, until it has operated several times, assisted by warm teas. They then give a kind of gruel or soup, made of boiled rice or beaten grains of corn. This usually stops the vomiting, and operates cathartically. They depend very much upon remedies of the sudorific class: these are, for the most part, warm teas; many of which are rather harmless than useful, the sweat-oven, and the steams of bitter decoctions. Tonic barks and roots are given during the absence of fever, and warm fomentations are applied locally, when they have pains. I have known them to excite blisters over the pained parts, with the bark of the moose-wood. But of all the remedies for this fatal disease, the one called by them the cough-root is the most valuable, and promises to become the most useful in skilful and experience hands. It is a plant which grows to the height of about from four to eight inches, has three leaves on the top of the stalk or stem, and never flowers. The roots, though not fibrous, are commonly branched into four or five radicles, and are of a whitish colour, and generally from two to three
-----
p. 446
inches in length. It grows in woodlands, and delights in an arable soil, and in the shade of large trees. Its root is perennial, and its top springs up about the middle of May. Its sensible properties are very similar to those of the balsam of copaiba, and it is equally medicinal, and less pungent. Few plants have so much reputation in pulmonary disorders, and none perhaps has juster claims to the encomiums it has received.
Should it be hereafter ascertained to be really valuable in consumptions, it will be entitled to regard in a two-fold point of view, for its diuretic properties are not surpassed by any plant with which I am acquainted. Its action on the kidneys is imperceptible, as it does not produce nausea, and such like symptoms. The Indians say, though I cannot state it from my own knowledge, that while the medicine affects the urinary system, there is no danger of the cough troubling the patient. They forget, however, the canker that gnaws the vitals.
The subject of Indian diseases and remedies would afford matter for an almost interminable communication, and it is rich with interest to the medical philosophy. But I have already extended my remarks to too great a length, and must hasten to conclude them. The observations I have detailed to you, were made at a period when I little thought of ever being in my present situation, under circumstances very unfavourable to improvement, and at a time when I had few motives to treasure up knowledge. You may, however, rely upon the facts I have stated,
-----
p. 447
as I have seldom ventured beyond my own experience. Hoping that you will overlook the numerous defects of my letter, and that you will dispose of it as you think proper, I assure you of my high consideration and esteem, and am,
Yours, &c.