EARTHWORKS ON THE BIG IIARPETIl RIVKR, 67 



osseous system could only have resulted from the action of a poison introduced 

 into the blood, and distributed throui^h this medium to all parts of the body. 



The North American Indians not only possessed, as is well known, great powers 

 of endurance, especially of hunger and cold, but their mode of dress protected 

 their lower limbs admirably from injuries of all kinds, and especially from frost- 

 bite. It is not true that they exposed the feet and legs without covering. 

 These facts did not escape the accurate observation of Dr. Benjamin Rush.^ 

 Thus he says, in his "Inquiry into the Natural History of Medicine among the 

 Indians of North America:" "I do not find that the Indians ever suffer in their 

 limbs from the action of cold upon them. Their moccasons, by allowing their 

 feet to move freely, and thereby promoting the circulation of the blood, defend 

 their lower extremities in the daytime, and their practice of sleeping with their 

 feet near a fire defends them from the effects of cold at night. In these 

 cases, when the motion of their feet in their moccasons is not sufficient to keep 

 them warm, they break the ice and restore their warmth by exposing them for a 

 short time to the action of cold water." Dr. Rush adds, in a note, that " it was 

 remarked in Canada, in the winter of the year 1759, during the war before the 

 last, that none of those soldiers who wore moccasons were frost-bitten, while few 

 of those escaped that were much exposed to the cold who wore shoes." 



The question which naturally suggests itself is, was syphilis communicated to 

 this ancient race by Europeans, or was the disease indigenous to the Indian race 

 of North America "? If tliese diseased bones demonstrate that this stone-grave race 

 had at some former period received syphilis from Europeans, then we have in this 

 fact data for an approximate determination of the age of at least a portion of these 

 remains. The weight of testimony seems to sustain the view that syphilis was of 

 American origin, and that it was originally imported from the AVest Indies into 

 Europe. Whilst admitting that mankind had suffered with ulceration of the 

 genital organs of a non-malignant cliaracter, and also, perhaps, with the simple 

 contagious gonorrhoea for ages before the discovery of America, we desire simply 

 to review, in connection with this discovery of the proofs of syphilis in the stone 

 graves of Tennessee, the testimony of certain writers who had opportunities of 

 investigating the origin of syphilis, at a comparatively early day in its history, in 

 the West Indies and on the continent of America. 



Bryan Edwards, in his " History of the West Indies," after describing the exces- 

 sive sensuality of the aboriginal inhabitants of those islands, and alluding to this 

 as the cause imputed by some writers for the origin of syphilis, "with the infliction 

 of which they have almost revenged the calamities brought upon them by the 

 avarice of Europe," nevertheless expresses his belief that the venereal affection 

 was known in Europe many centuries before the discovery of America. He is 

 compelled, however, to admit that " it might have broke out with renewed violence 

 about the time of Columbus's return from his first expedition;" and he explains 

 this sudden increase of the disease by a reference to the increased activity and 

 commerce of the age, thus : " This was the era of wonder, and, probably, the infre- 



' Medical Inquiries and Observations, Phila. 1805, vol. i, p. 25. 



