FROST-BITTEN FEET CURE SUGGESTED. 57 



feet badly frost-bitten, and the object of this other 

 skyppar in now visiting us was to ask if we were 

 going over to Hammerfest soon, that we might take 

 the poor man with us, or if we had any medicine 

 with us which would cure him. We had no medi- 

 cine but a box of pills and one of Seidlitz powders, 

 and doubting the efficacy of these in a case of mor- 

 tification, I recommended them to take the man 

 over to Norway immediately, or else to amputate 

 the frost-bitten parts of his feet without farther 

 delay. The master of the sloop replied that he 

 and his crew could not afford to sacrifice their 

 summer's profits by leaving the ice with their ves- 

 sel only half full, and were afraid to take upon 

 themselves the responsibility of performing the 

 amputation. I then told them them that, as we 

 had just come out, and had already the same num- 

 ber of souls on board our smaller vessel as they 

 had, with the addition of the six castaways, we did 

 not feel that it was incumbent upon us either to go 

 over to Norway or to relieve them of the charge of 

 any of the men. I remembered hearing long ago, 

 in the case of a friend who had shot his arm off, 

 that bandages wet with port wine were applied to 

 keep off mortification, and so, as the nearest ap- 

 proach to that stimulant in our possession, we gave 

 them a coUple of bottles of rum, and advised them 

 to apply that either externally or internally, as they 

 might deem most advisable. 



We heard a few days afterward that by great 



