50 Account .of the 



precise mode of preparing this important anti-epilep- 

 tic medicine. Mr. Pennant (after Charlevoix) says, 

 the Indians use the hoof of the moose in the same dis- 

 ease, and that they apply it to the heart of the patient, 

 " make him hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear 

 with it*." It is difficult, and, perhaps, would not be 

 important, to discover the origin of these crude no-, 

 tions and wild practices. If it be true, that the Elk 

 ever employs the oil of his hind legs as a remedy in 

 any of his own diseases, it would not be unnatural to 

 conjecture, that the savages have derived the first hint 

 of the use of this animal's hoof in epilepsy from his 

 singular practice of physicf. 

 • 



Some of the Indians are accustomed to hang about 

 their necks, as tokens of the success they have had 

 in hunting Elks, two particular teeth of every one of 

 these animals they have killed. This practice also, I 

 suppose, is the result of some superstitious opinions 

 concerning our animal. 



The Indians, in many parts of North- America, are 

 fond of naming their rivers, mountains, towns, &c, 

 after the wild animals of the country. They have not 

 forgotten the Elk. Thus, one of the towns of the 



* Arctic Zoology. Vol. i. p. 22. 



t It is a very ancient notion, that different parts of the stag, 

 such as the horns, the lungs, the blood, &c, are antidotes to many 

 of our diseases, as pains of the head, cough, spitting of blood, Sic., 

 Sec. The curious reader may amuse himself by consulting, on 

 this subject, the writings of the learned Roman naturalist, Pliny. 

 N'uturalis Historic. Lib. x:;viii. cap. xiv, xvi, xviii, Sic. 



