wet—had ceased to operate. A solitary instance of pleurisy also occurred, which probably might have ended fatally but for timely assistance. Our intercourse with them in the summer was more interrupted; but at our occasional meetings they were observed to be enjoying excellent health. It is probable that their certain supplies of food, and the nomad kind of life they lead in its pursuit during that season, are favourable to health. Nutrition goes on actively, and an astonishing increase of strength and fulness is acquired. Active diseases might now be looked for, but that the powers of nature are providentially exerted with effect.
“The unlimited use of stimulating animal food, on which they are from infancy fed, induces at an early age a highly plethoric state of the vascular system. The weaker over-distended vessels of the nose quickly yield to the increased impetus of the blood, and an active hemorrhage relieves the subject. As the same causes continue to be applied in excess at frequent intervals, and are followed by similar effects, a kind of vicarious hemorrhage at length becomes established by habit; superseding the intervention of art, and having no small share in maintaining a balance in the circulating system. The phenomenon is too constant to have escaped the observation of those who have visited the different Esquimaux people; a party of them has indeed rarely been seen that did not exhibit two or three instances of the fact.
“About the month of September the approach of winter induced the Esquimaux at Igloolik to abandon their tents and to retire into their more established village. The majority were here crowded into huts of a permanent construction, the materials composing the sides being stones and the bones of whales, and the roofs being formed
of skins, turf, and snow; the rest of the people were lodged in snow-huts. For a while they continued very healthy; in fact, as long as the temperature of the interior did not exceed the freezing-point, the vapours of the atmosphere congealed upon the walls, and the air remained dry and tolerably pure; besides, their hard-frozen winter stock of walrus did not at this time tempt them to indulge their appetites immoderately. In January the temperature suffered an unseasonable rise, some successful captures of walrus also took place, and these circumstances, combined perhaps with some superstitious customs, of which we were ignorant, seemed the signal for giving way to sensuality. The lamps were accumulated and the kettles more frequently replenished, and gluttony in its most disgusting form became for a while the order of the day. The Esquimaux were now seen wallowing in filth, while some surfeited lay stretched upon their skins enormously distended, and with their friends employed in rolling them about to assist the operations of oppressed nature. The roofs of their huts were no longer congealed, but dripping with wet and threatening speedy dissolution. The air was in the bone-huts damp, hot, and, beyond sufferance, offensive with putrid exhalations from the decomposing relics of offals, or other animal matter, permitted to remain from year to year undisturbed in these horrible sinks.
“What the consequences might have been had this state of affairs long continued, it is not difficult to imagine; but, fortunately for them, an early and gradual dispersion took place, so that by the end of January few individuals were left in the village. The rest, in divided bodies, established themselves in snow-huts upon the sea-ice at some distance from the land. Before this change had
been completed, disorders of an inflammatory character had appeared. A few went away sick, some were unable to remove, and others taken ill upon the ice, and we heard of the death of several about this period.
“The cold snow-huts into which they had moved, though infinitely preferable to those abandoned, were ill-suited to the reception of people already sick or predisposed, from the above-named causes, to sickness; many of them were also deficient in clothing to meet the rigorous weather that followed. Nevertheless, after this violent excitement had passed away, a comparatively good condition of health was enjoyed for the remainder of the winter and spring months.
“Their distance from the ships at once precluded any effectual assistance being rendered them at their huts, and their removal on board with safety; the complaints of those who died at the huts, therefore, did not come under observation. It appears, however, to have been acute inflammation of some of the abdominal viscera, very rapid in its career. In the generality the disease assumed a more insidious and sub-acute form, under which the patient lingered for a while, and was then either carried off by a diarrhœa or slowly recovered by the powers of nature. Three or four individuals who, with some risk and trouble, were brought to the ships, we were providentially instrumental in recovering; but two others, almost helpless patients, were so far exhausted before their arrival that the endeavours used were unsuccessful, and death was probably hastened by their removal.
“Abdominal and thoracic inflammations, in fact, seem to be the only active diseases they have to encounter. Where a spontaneous recovery does not take place, these
prove fatal in a short time. The only instance among them of chronic sequels to those complaints occurred in an old man almost in dotage, whose feeble remains of life were wasting away by an ulceration of the lungs.