TUBES. 



191 



were never put : that suggested by Schoolcraft, of their being telescopes 

 for the better observance of eclipses ; also, that they were 

 trumpets for producing far-reaching sounds, or as veritable 

 musical instruments On the other hand, the suggestion, 

 based upon certain passages in the writings of various early 

 travellers in North America, that they were medicine-tubes, 

 seems to us the one plausible explanation of these labori- 





■ 



■ - v 



ously- wrought stone implements. 



Mr. C. C. Jones,* in describing 

 certain specimens of these tubes, 

 varying in no important feature from 

 (hat here figured, remarks that — 



•■ These authorities confirm our im- 

 pressions that tubes — like those we have 

 been considering — were medicinal in their 

 uses, and materially assisted the primitive 

 physician — at once quack and conjurer — 

 in performing his wonderful cures. * * 



Fig. C2. 



js -- »S- . 



ifrz 



§H> 



Actual size of upper end of tube. 

 * By the circular open- 

 ing at the larger end, the seat of pain could have been conveniently 



covered. The weight of the instrument' 



enhanced its efficiency and rendered 



more facile its preservation in the de- 

 sired position. While under treatment, 



Indian patients were compelled to assume 



more than a recumbent position. They 



were obliged to he flat down, now mi 



the back, and again on the stomach. If 



we go one step farther and suppose, the 



cavity next to the flattened end [in our 



specimen, simply .smaller, but cylindrical] 



tilled with punk, dried tobacco-leaves, 



or some combustible material, the other Actual size of lower end of tube, 

 end of the tube being firmly applied to the part affected, which had been pre- 

 viously scarified, we will perceive, when the contained substance was ignited, how 

 readily this tube would have answered the purposes either of cauterization or cupping. 

 In the one case the particles of burning matter dropping through the central opening 

 would have blistered and burnt the diseased spot ; while in the other, the active fire 

 kindled in the upper portion of the tube — the ashes by a simple contrivance being pre- 

 vented from falling through the narrow j>ortion of the bore below — would have created 

 and maintained, during its existence, a vacuum in the lower part of the tube, thus 

 causing the blood to flow freely from the incisions made in the flesh." 





if stone 



Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 364, New "Vork, 1873. 



