26 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



Finally some rag, as an old towel just soaked in water — the equivalent 

 of the piece of tanned skin of former years — is thrown on the grass, 

 thus completely closing the aperture of the hole, and the patient 

 steams herself over it in the region of the womb. This contrivance 

 is, it seems, fruitful of the most satisfactory results. 



As soon as the new-born child has received the first cares necessi- 

 tated by its entry into the world, due attention is paid by its mother 

 and her attendants to its future personal appearance. Here long heads 

 do not meet with favour ; therefore the head of the infant is frequently 

 compressed or squeezed between the hands applied to its top and to 

 tlie chin. No mechanical or permanent contrivance is called into 

 requisition. Futhermore, its eyes are time and again opened and 

 the lids pressed asunder, not any too gently, so as to cause 

 generous dimensions for the balls, and the tiny eye-brows* are 

 from time to time manipulated into the most elegantly arched shape 

 possible. 



I will now close this review of the Dene surgery by mentioning 

 an operation which the preceding pages have not prepared the reader 

 to anticipate, I mean the extraction of cataract. Few ills are more 

 common here than diseases of the eye. The number of blind people 

 among the Carriers, and the Babines especially, is altogether out of 

 proportion with the population. Snow-haze, accidental blows on the 

 face received in the thickets, smoke from the camp fire or from 

 underneath the fruit-drying or salmon-curing shanties, added some- 

 time to uncleanliness on the part of the old people, are the main causes 

 of this too prevalent complaint. Cataract is easily discerned by the 

 natives who treat it in this wise. 



A minute pellicle is torn from a piece of birch bark {Bitula 

 papyracea), after which it is doubled up and its extremities firmly 

 held between the fingers. One of the sides of the curve thus formed 

 is then used as the edge of a scraper on the corner of the eye next 

 to the bridge of the nose, and the thin film-like covering on the eye-ball 

 is worked on till part of it is torn asunder, thereby affording a hold for 

 the grasp of the fingers. These now complete the operation by gently 

 drawing off the whole impediment to vision. 



Instead of birch bark, others use for the same purpose a piece of 

 calcined bone which, coming in contact with the waste tissue formed 



* I suppose I will not teach anything- to my readers by recalling the fact that Indian babies are almost 

 always born with a full crop of hair and more than once with several teeth. 



