Let us now inquire into the REMEDIES of the Indians. These, like their diseases, are simple, and few in number. Among the first of them we shall mention the POWERS OF NATURE. Fevers, we said formerly, constituted the chief of the diseases among the Indians; they are likewise, in the hands of nature, the principal instruments to remove the evils which threaten her dissolution; but the event of these efforts of nature, no doubt, soon convinced the Indians of the danger of trusting her in all cases; and hence, in the earliest accounts we have of their manners, we read of persons who were intrusted with the office of physicians.
It will be difficult to find out the exact order in which the Indian remedies were suggested by nature or discovered by art; nor will it be easy to arrange them in proper order. I shall, however, attempt it, by reducing them to NATURAL and ARTIFICIAL.
To the class of NATURAL REMEDIES belongs the Indian practice of abstracting from their patients all kinds of stimulating aliment. The compliance of the Indians with the dictates of nature, in the early stage of a disease, no doubt, prevents, in many cases, their being obliged to use any other remedy. They follow nature still closer, in allowing their patients to drink plentifully of cold water; this being the only liquor a patient calls for in a fever.
Sweating is likewise a natural remedy. It was probably suggested by observing fevers to be terminated by it. I shall not inquire how far these sweats are essential to the crisis of a fever. The Indian mode of procuring this evacuation is as follows: the patient is confined in a close tent, or wigwam, over a hole in the earth, in which a red hot stone is placed; a quantity of water is thrown upon this stone, which instantly involves the patient in a cloud of vapour and sweat; in this situation he rushes out, and plunges himself into a river, from whence he retires to his bed. If the remedy has been used with success, he rises from his bed in four and twenty hours, perfectly recovered from his indisposition. This remedy is used not only to cure fevers, but remove that uneasiness which arises from fatigue of body.
A third natural remedy among the Indians, is PURGING. The fruits of the earth, the flesh of birds, and other animals feeding upon particular vegetables, and, above all, the spontaneous efforts of nature, early led the Indians to perceive the necessity and advantages of this evacuation.
VOMITS constitute their fourth natural remedy. They were probably, like the former, suggested by nature, and accident. The ipecacuanha is one of the many roots they employ for that purpose.
The ARTIFICIAL REMEDIES made use of by the Indians, are BLEEDING, CAUSTICS, and ASTRINGENT medicines. They confine bleeding entirely to the part affected. To know that opening a vein in the arm, or foot, would relieve a pain in the head or side, supposes some knowledge of the animal economy, and therefore marks an advanced period in the history of medicine.
Sharp stones and thorns are the instruments they use to procure a discharge of blood.
We have an account of the Indians using something like a POTENTIAL CAUSTIC, in obstinate pains. It consists of a piece of rotten wood called punk, which they place upon the part affected, and afterwards set it on fire: the fire gradually consumes the wood, and its ashes burn a hole in the flesh.
The undue efforts of nature, in those fevers which are connected with a diarrhœa, or dysentery, together with those hemorrhages to which their mode of life exposed them, necessarily led them to an early discovery of some ASTRINGENT VEGETABLES. I am uncertain whether the Indians rely upon astringent, or any other vegetables, for the cure of the intermitting fever. This disease among them probably requires no other remedies than the cold bath, or cold air. Its greater obstinacy, as well as frequency, among ourselves, must be sought for in the greater feebleness of our constitutions, and in that change which our country has undergone, from meadows, mill-dams, and the cutting down of woods; whereby morbid exhalations have been multiplied, and their passage rendered more free, through every part of country.