THE WESTERN COUNTRY 289 



arsenic to his medicine.* Both plants are very com- 

 mon in other parts of America, and the blood-root is 

 here and there used as a remedy for warts and in 

 cleansing slight sores. It is to be wished that the 

 physicians in America, who have already in other 

 matters, shown their patriotism in many noble efforts, 

 may also have a patriotic eye to the completer knowl- 

 edge and more general use of their native materia 

 medica. It betrays an unpardonable indifference to 

 their fatherland to see them making use almost wholly 

 of foreign medicines, with which in large measure they 

 might easily dispense, if they were willing to give their 

 attention to home-products, informing themselves more 

 exactly of the properties and uses of the stock of 

 domestic medicines already known. They would then 

 have the pleasure of showing their fellow-citizens how 

 unreasonable it is to envy the poor Indians their re- 

 puted science, and they would be working usefully for 

 the community and beneficently for the poor if they 

 made it their business to further the employment of 

 the manifold wealth afforded by nature in its precious 

 gifts to them. 



* After Martin's death, in 1784, Dr. Rush discovered & pub- 

 lished in the second volume of the Transact, of the Amer. 

 Philos. Society, that his cancer-powder consisted of white 

 arsenic and a plant ingredient. 



