288 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



aroused the credulity and won the confidence of his 

 people so much the more because of the clever pre- 

 text that the discovery of the root (according to him 

 the medicine came from a root) had been communi- 

 cated to him in confidence by an old Indian at Pitts- 

 burg. Although shrewd and impartial physicians at 

 Philadelphia found good reason to doubt the highly 

 praised worth of the remedy in genuine cases of can- 

 cer, the incredible number of imaginary or pretended 

 cases of the disease, news of which came in from all 

 parts, was astonishing. Never before had so much 

 been heard of this malady. But it was certain that 

 fear and prepossession caused the anxious patient to 

 fancy every obstinate or rooted impostume must be 

 cancerous, and it was to be expected of the purveyor 

 of the famous remedy that he, for his advantage, 

 should claim everything to be cancer and thus multi- 

 ply his cures. However it was by no means clearly made 

 out that the medicine used by him was in reality taken 

 from nothing but a root. But he sought to spread 

 abroad this belief, and almost every year made a 

 journey to Pittsburg pretending to dig his mysterious 

 root there from a particular hill on the Monongahela. 

 Since I had come from Philadelphia, the attempt was 

 made to search out this root for me, and I was shown 

 the region whence it was believed he got the root ; 

 I found there in great quantity the Sanguinaria cana- 

 densis (blood-root) and the Ranunculus sceleratus L. 

 Both roots have corrosive properties, and from many 

 other circumstances too numerous to mention, it is 

 highly probable that Martin made use of one or the 

 other, if only to conceal other and more powerful con- 

 stituents mixed in, for it was supposed that he added 



