174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 99 



the malady and the cure. [As already stated (see p. 157), the formulas 

 or prescriptions, as written down without order by a medicine man in 

 his notebook or on stray scraps of paper, do not alwaj^s have a title, 

 and often even lack any indication whatever as to the disease against 

 which they are to be used.] 



The disease is described as an itching of the privates, which causes 

 the patient to scratch the parts affected, thus producing painful sores. 

 [Women as well as men may suffer from it.] It is the residt of 

 having urinated, when a child, upon tlie fire, the ashes, or upon an 

 ant hill. In the first two cases the act is a profanation of the fire, 

 which is esteemed sacred (see p. 21), and children are frequently 

 warned against committing such a sacrilege. In the otlier case tlie 

 revengeful ants deposit their eggs on tlie privates, thus causing an 

 irritation of these parts. [Also urinating along a trail, in the yard 

 surrounding the house, m a place where an animal has been lolled, 

 and in the river, are all acts which may result in an ailment such as 

 is here vaguely described as "itching." Informants do not agree as 

 to whether the itching is internal or cutaneous. In the first case the 

 disease is but a sympton of another illness, as, e. g., 

 rnc'ca yi'nf'n8nii'Go*tc*€'!a 

 D-nQ-'^ni tsa-'ndfk'o'!a° 

 and is now occasionally by "modernists" among tlie medicine men 

 held to be part and parcel of a disease of venereal nature. When 

 the itching is cutaneous it is quite possible, from the description of 

 symptoms given, that we are dealing \\ith a case of "itch-worm" 

 (Sarcoptes (Acarus) scabiei).] 



The disease may follow hnmediately on the commission of one of 

 the acts mentioned above, or may lie dormant until manliood or 

 womanhood is reached. 



[The plants used are i''nistJD.t'sti €-'g\\'6'^\ Lappxda lirginiana (L.) 

 Greene, beggar's lice, u^ntstdo.t'sti ystf'ca, Cynoglossum virginianwn 

 L., Mild comfrey.] 



The affected parts are bathed vn.th. a decoction of tlie roots, while 

 anotlier portion of the decoction is drunlv by tlie patient, who, while 

 under treatment, entirely abstains from anything else in the nature 

 of food and drink. [The patient may diink the decoction at intervals 

 of an hour or half an hour, from sunrise to noon, when he is allowed 

 to break his fast, after Avhich the treatment is considered ended for 

 tlie day. In severe cases, though, he may not eat until sunset; in 

 either of the two cases the treatment is continued for four days.] 



