Deafness.—Take a beaver’s tail, roast it, squeeze out the oil and apply on cotton. Or, roast a turnip in ashes, squeeze out the juice, and put four drops, twice a week, into the ear. Take cleansing syrup daily.
Cathartic for Fevers.—Take half ounce American ipecacuanha, three ounces culver root, three ounces snake root, sliced and bruised, and one quart good old rum; keep them in a covered earthen vessel by the fire, for five days, and then strain the tincture for use. Dose—a tablespoonful twice a day.
As a diaphoretic, in low stages of fever, and in confluent small pox, when sores appear gangrene, and the powers of life seem sunk, take the following mixture: four drachms of bruised snake root, one pint boiling water, two drachms tincture snake root, four drachms syrup of ginger. Dose—two tablespoonsful, to be taken every three hours, in the above complaint.
Lumbago.—Take one pound of fresh brake root, or female fern, one ounce sumach root, cut fine, half ounce culver root, half ounce mandrake root, and half ounce angelica seed; boil them in two quarts whiskey, until they become slimy; then dip cloths in and bind on. Take a tablespoonful nights, inwardly, and half a wine glass full mornings. Repeat the application on the spine, very frequently.
Rickets in Children.—Take one ounce of brake root, or female fern, cut fine, and pour one quart of boiling water on it; sweeten it, and give the child a teacup full four times a day; if the child is too young to take this dose, give less, according to age. At the same time, use the decoction in rum, for bathing the spine and limbs of the child; it would be well to bathe the child in a spring, every morning in summer.
Scrofulous Swellings.—Take the inner bark of bayberry bush, pound it soft, and apply it over the swellings and sores, nights and mornings. Drink a strong tea made of bayberry leaves—a teacup full four times a day.
Wind, or Cholic.—Take one ounce of bayberry berries, bruise them well, and half ounce masterwort seed, well pulverized or bruised; infuse them in three pints of best cogniac brandy for a week, and shake the bottle frequently. Take a half wine glass full in the same quantity warm water, twice a day, on an empty stomach; if necessary, take it three times a day.
Indian Remedy for Fevers.—I find the Indians more incident to fevers, than any other disease, and they rarely fail to cure themselves, by sweating, and then plunging themselves into cold water, which, they say, is the only way not to catch cold. I once saw an instance of this kind. Being in search of a particular root, at the Lake of the Two Mountains, about thirty miles from Montreal, I called on an Indian chief, and found him ill of a fever; his head and limbs were apparently much affected with pain; his wife was preparing a bagnio, or bath, for him. The bagnio resembled a large oven, into which he crept by a door; on the side opposite the door was a hole, in which she put hot stones. She fastened the hole up as closely as possible, to prevent the least air entering therein. While he was sweating in his bagnio, his wife was preparing his road to the lake. This was in August, 1835—a very cold season; in less than half an hour, he was in so great a sweat that when he came out, he was as wet as if he had come out of a river, and the steam from his body was so thick, that it was hard to discern his form or face, although I stood near him. In this condition, naked, a body cloth only excepted, he ran to the river, about thirty paces distant, ducked himself two or three times, and returned, passing through his bagnio, to mitigate the severe shock of the cold, to his own house, perhaps twenty paces further, and, wrapping himself in his woolen mantle, lay down at full length near a long, but gentle fire in the middle of his wigwam—turning himself several times, till dry; he then arose, and began getting dinner ready for us, seeming to be as easy and as well as either of us.
The squaws wash their new-born babes in cold water, as soon as they are delivered, often repeating the same healthy operation. I have recommended cold water to a number of weak females, during pregnancy, and they have borne up with a vigor scarcely less wonderful than that of the Indian woman.
Hardihood of Indian Women.—The great power of endurance which the Indian woman of the forest, uncontaminated by the blighting influence which civilization often introduces among them, many have noticed. Every one has read the account of their remarkable health, during pregnancy and child-birth. Washington Irving, in his “Astoria,” in giving an account of a journey, through the dreary deserts lying between the Snake and Columbia Rivers, says: