Olbrechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 39 



CAUSERS OF CONTAGIOUS DISEASE 



To close this review of disease causers, there is a last category to be 

 oriefly mentioned, viz, the white people, and especially the white 

 physicians. These cause one kind of disease only, but they are the 

 very diseases the Cherokee stand in most frantic fear of — epidemics. 



A. F. Chamberlain, in his article on Disease and Medicine — Ameri- 

 can, in Hastings's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, III, page 732, 

 draws attention to the fact that many North American Indian tribes 

 ascribe epidemics to the evil influence or activities of the white people, 

 and has illustrated his statement by an interesting citation from 

 Winslow's Good News from New England (1624); cf. also Dr. H. U. 

 Williams, The Epidemic of the Indians of New England, 1616-1620, 

 with Remarks on Native American Infections, in Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital Bulletin (Baltimore), XX (1909), pages 340-349. 



The Cherokee medicine men are at odds when it comes to state 

 which motives drive white physicians when they let loose epidemics to 

 ravage the Cherokee settlements. According to some informants, 

 they do it simply because they hate the Indians; according to others, 

 in order to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims. 



It is not known exactly in what ways and by v/hat methods the 

 white physician attains his ends, but at least one case is known, the 

 Cherokee claim, where it is clearly shown what means were used. 



"Toward the close of the Civil War two Cherokee (one of them was 

 called Isaac) were captured by Union troops and kept prisoners of 

 war at Knoxville, Tenn. When, after the war, they were released 

 they were called into a room and shown a red fish (swimming in a 

 bowl). After they had looked at it the fish was put away again . They 

 came back to where they lived, and three or four days after they got 

 home they became feverish, and their whole body became covered 

 with sores; they had smallpox." (W., Og., T.) 



In this case it is emphatically stated by present informants that 

 it was the mere looking at the fish that caused the disease and that it 

 was purposely shown them by the white people to bring affliction 

 and death on the two Cherokee and their people. 



There is a generic name for contagious disease: a'"ye"lf'Do°!a' 

 i. e. ''he (the disease causer?) drives it (the disease) about." 



As for the means used to cure or prevent it, see "Prophylaxis," 

 p. 73 et seq. 



DISEASE AND ITS TREATMENT 



Diagnosis and Prognosis 



We now have a pretty sound and tolerably complete idea of the 

 Cherokee views on disease and are equipped with the indispensable 

 elements to understand their practices with regard to the treatment 

 of diseases. 



