512 AJSINUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



the beginning of the eighteenth century seems probable from Lafi- 

 tau's essay on medical practices. He says that the healing of 

 wounds was the masterpiece of their operations, that they were on 

 the verge of something so remarkable as to be almost unbelievable. 

 One Mohawk warrior who went against the Fox Nation had his 

 shoulder fractured by a gunshot during the attack on a Kickapoo 

 village; yet he survived hunger and the discomforts of a journey of 

 700 leagues (2,100 miles) to be treated by a tribal surgeon. To eiffect 

 these marvelous cures, he says,^^ they concocted a treacle water ^" 

 composed of several classes of ingredients. The first group included 

 vulnerary herbs, graduated according to their properties. Next were 

 vulnerary trees from the trunk or root of which splinters were taken. 

 The third was derived from the bodies of divers animals, especially 

 the heart, which, dried and powdered, was made into a mastic. His 

 description of the solution of the first of these sounds very much like 

 the modern "Small dose," or Little Water Medicine, of which very 

 little is used and the fluid appears almost colorless. He says its effect 

 is to push out not only vicious humors that have the habit of forming 

 in the wound, but also the splinters of broken bones and arrowheads. 

 The patient is given some to drink and is kept away from all nour- 

 islmient while in danger, although in modem cases light unsalted 

 breads and white meats are given. Meanwhile the doctor drinks 

 some of the solution him'self to the end that his saliva is saturated 

 with it, before sucking the injury or spraying it with his mouth, the 

 latter being the modern practice. Lafitau attaches great importance 

 to the practice of covering the wound so as to exclude contact with 

 everything save a possible binding of boiled herbs, which they think 

 prevents infection. He continues that when the wounds are dressed 

 and the above operation repeated the wounds always appear clean 

 and fresh and free of clots ; and provided that the sick man is careful 

 he is soon healed. Whereas Lahontan has argued that eating no 

 salt facilitated these cures, Lafitau thought that the healing followed 

 principally from the efficacy of their vulneraries and particularly 

 from the precautions taken to prevent the wound from becoming ex- 

 posed to the air. Whatever the validity of his arguments a chemical 

 analysis of samples of the modern plant and animal powders would 

 be interesting. 



Indian surgeons were apparently as successful with fractures and 

 dislocations. However, Lafitau's assertion that they did not perform 

 less well with ruptures and hernias and that broken bones mended in 

 8 days' times is questionable. The important fact historically is that 



» Lafitau, J. F., op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 365-366 flf. 



*■ 2'heriaca, Lat., was an antidote, or medicine to counteract the effects of poison, origi- 

 nally against the bites of wild beasts ; and such preparations were frequently carried by the 

 Jesuits in New France. 



