

DRINKS, NARCOTICS, AND MEDICINES 79 



A tea of the leaves of the sumac, Rhus ovata, Coahuilla ndk-wit, is 

 drunk for coughs and pain in the chest. So also are the twigs of the 

 Bigilovia graveolens, Gray, Coahuilla tes-i-nit, a shrub with a wide 

 range, but found in this case on the desert. 



For fevers the Coahuillas use the root of a plant called by them 

 se'-vi-tu-ki, which is crushed and boiled, the liquid being then used for 

 bathing the face, neck and hands ; a very little may also be drunk. 



The above enumeration covers pretty well the scope of native 

 pathology ; bowel and stomach complaints, coughs, colds, and mild 

 fevers, sore eyes, occasioned by the smoke of jacal and sweat-house, 

 sprains, muscular soreness and injury, with occasional rheumatism. 

 These were their only diseases before the introduction of the contagious 

 and specific maladies qf^ the whites. Of these latter, by far the most 

 destructive is tuberculosis, which is constantly active and frequently 

 removes a whole family of children. Measles, whooping-cough, and 

 especially small-pox, have been terrible scourges at times. Venereal 

 diseases among the Coahuillas, thanks to their isolation and a saving 

 distrust of the white man, who is never admitted to their community 

 life, are practically unknown. In this last respect I believe the 

 Coahuillas are superior to almost any tribes of the Southwest. 



57. Several medicines also are applied to sick stock. 



The Larrea Mexicana is not only used for consumption, but is given 

 to horses with colds, distemper, or running at the nose. 



A drink prepared from the Adenostoma fasiculatum is given to sick 

 cows. 



At Cabeson I was once shown a bundle of dried roots, gathered in 

 the San Bernadino mountains, called te'-a-il, from which was made a 

 medicine for horses. 



The most serious affliction from which horses suffer is, however, 

 saddle-gall. The California stock saddle is the most efficient riding 

 seat, for all practical purposes, ever devised, but though designed 

 and constructed with extreme care, it is unpreventably hard upon a 

 horse's back in the unparalleled exertions incident to western stock rais- 

 ing and mountain riding. The saddle-tree is heavy and the strain of 

 pulling with a reata from the pommel in handling cattle is very hard 

 on the back and hide. The heat in summer is great and horses are 

 ridden harder and more continuously than perhaps anywhere else in 

 the world, sixty to eighty miles on a stretch being common for a good 

 horse and rider. It invariably results that a saddle horse is marked by 

 patches of white hair on withers, back, and sides, that cover the scars 



