20 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. V'II. 



Surgical scratching on flat surfaces is also practised, though seldom 

 enough, by the Northern Denes. 



Here are two late instances that will illustrate the circumstances 

 under which bleeding is mostly resorted to here. About two months 

 ago, I returned from a trip of over three weeks duration to an outpost 

 of my central mission. On the way back, one of my companions experi- 

 enced some physical difficulty with one of his feet which rendered 

 snow-shoeing exceedingly painful, if not quite impossible. Without 

 any loss of time, his instep was duly scarified with a pocket-knife 

 by one of his fellow Indians. Upon my return here, I noticed one 

 of our women who since some time had been suffering from some 

 nervous derangement, possibly catalepsy, bandaged about the head. 

 Enquiry brought out the fact that, during m}' absence, she had 

 undergone an almost identical operation in the vicinity of the 

 temples with the addition, this time, of a poultice of bruised hemlock 

 roots. 



Another surgical practice which was formerly much in vogue 

 among the Carriers, but has now fallen into desultude, was that of 

 burning. It could not properly be called cautery, as its object was 

 not the searing of the flesh as a means of stopping blood or of 

 preventing the extension of a local trouble. It was used mainly 

 against rheumatism or any ill of a cognate nature, and its chosen 

 seat of operation was very generally the joints of a limb, either the 

 wrist, the elbow, the shoulder, or the knee. Sometimes also any part 

 of the spine, and more seldom a spot on the bony surface of the head 

 were likewise experimented on. 



This is how the operation was performed. When an Indian had 

 resolved to get rid of an aching pain that had become too acute 

 for patient bearing, he took a round piece of tinder perhaps one-third 

 of an inch in diameter, wetted with his saliva that part of its surface 

 that was to come in contact with the flesh, and then pressed it firmly 

 on the joint the healing of which was deemed most likely to ensure 

 the prompt recovery of the whole limb. Next, he himself, or an 

 obliging friend ignited the top of the tinder, which was suffered to 

 burn down to the very flesh, wherein a corresponding sore or cavity 

 was inevitably produced. The excruciating pain consequent on the 

 slow combustion of the piece of fungus was ordinarly borne in the 

 most stoically indifferent way possible. A moment of the severest 

 anguish is nothing to the Indian, especially if accompanied by the 



