26 CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAK 



sari)risiiig to notice the presence of favorable symptoms and ultimate improvement. In a lew days 

 the i»atient was landed at Plover Bay, Siberia, where he recovered sufficiently to start on foot for 

 his home over a rugged mountain way 150 miles distant. 



Some weeks thereafter the Corwin happening to sto[) in at Plover Bay, I inquired of a native, 

 remarkable for his whaleman's English and apothegmatical way of putting things, whether my 

 l)atient had got well, to which he replied, "Yes; small well." I learned subsecjuently from a whal- 

 ing vessel, on board which this man had made a visit at Saint Lawrence Bay, that he had entirely 

 recovered from his wound, but still labored under the delusion that his life had been attempted by 

 the captain of the Corwin. 



One case of hermetical sealing of a wound of the foregoing description does not prove much, 

 to be sure, and it is hardly necessary to advocate a subject that has been the occasion of much 

 discussion; but it does seem that the occlusive treatment, which has been sanctioned and prac- 

 ticed by such masters as Guy de Chaiiliac, John de Vigo, Par6, Graefe, of Berlin, and others, has 

 its virtues, notwithstanding a different and unwarrantable assumption put before the public in a 

 late official publication. 



Wounds seem to heal uncommonly well in the Arctic, a fact doubtless owing to the highly 

 ozonized condition of the atmosphere and the absence of disease germs and organic dust. It is 

 noticeable both in man and animals. At King's Island I saw a whale's rib in which reunion had 

 taken phice after a fracture probably caused by a bomb lance, and I have also seen a bear with 

 several reunited ribs which had been fractured by a musket ball that had previously passed through 

 the skull. A fossil rib of a reindeer, taken from the mammoth clift" in Kotzebue Sound, likewise 

 showed reunion after a fracture. 



Several extraordinary recoveries from scalp wounds, more extensive in character than 

 anything of the kiu<l I have ever seen in hospital or described in surgical works, came under my 

 observation. One occurred off the Siberian coast in an old Eskimo who denuded a large portion 

 of the osfrontis from a fall on the ice. Careful approximation of the edges of the wound and the 

 api)lication of a retentive bandage were followed by rapid healing unaccompanied by complications. 

 But the two most notable ones were in Eskimo, who in encounters with bears had been pawed and 

 terribly lacerated about the head and face — a favorite amusement of this animal when he gets a 

 man in his clutches. The first fellow's scalp, neck, and face, in the region of the parotid gland, 

 were extensively mutilated; the second was similarly torn, with tiie additional loss of his left eye, 

 and fracture of his inferior maxilla. Both men, though much deformed, had recovered without 

 surgical assistance, and the wounds were well cicatrized. 



Occasional gunshot wounds, usually the result of accident, are also met with among the Eskimo. 

 At Saint Lawrence Bay I saw an old man who had been struck by a ball which entered the left 

 side of his face just under the zygomatic process, and, passing downwards, had emerged fi'om the 

 neck, in the vicinity of the right carotid artery. 



Among other things observed surgically were three cases of angular ankylosis of the knee 

 joint, two occurring in adults and one in a boy; a case of paraplegia, due to traumatic causes; a 

 case of periostitis of the bones of the forearm, another of necrosis of the superior maxilla; several 

 of tumors occurring on the neck, and one case of hemoi-rhoids. The latter affection and boils are 

 (piite common, according to Mr. Nelson, who has spent some time at Saint Michael's. Mr. Petroff 

 tells me that he has seen among the Innuit population of the interior extensive serjiigiuous ulcers, 

 which yielded readily to treatment; and has also noticed a great many instances of disabled 

 extremities from the effects of fi'ost-bite. Among the more northern Eskimo, however, it appears 

 that frost-bites are extremely rare. I have never seen an instance, and this observation seems to 

 accord with the experience of others. More rare still is the occurrence of malformation, deformity, 

 or idiotcy. Whether the Spartan rule obtains relative to the destruction of weak or deformed 

 infants, I am unable to say. However that may be, I can recall but a single instance in which 

 thei'e was observed anything approaching to deformity, and that was a girl with a supernumerary 

 digit. 



Skin diseases, principally of the vesicular and squamous varieties, were found to prevail 

 extensively, a fact not to be wondered at, since they are just the diseases the medical man would 

 expect to see developed in subjects among whom are recognized the conditions most favorable to 



