

3 1 8 The Aborigines of Brazil. 



being, who does not continue in his former relation to his 

 family, but is possessed, and fallen under the influence of un- 

 friendly powers. He is subject to a necessity from which he 

 can be released only by his own powers, assisted perhaps 

 by friendly natural ones. His vicinity has something ill- 

 omened,* and dangerous in it. He is therefore left as much 

 as possible to himself. This idea has laid the foundation of 

 the panic which seizes an Indian population on the appearance 

 of an epidemic, and which leads to the great mortality attend- 

 ing it. 



IV. — Materia Medica. 



It is in the Materia Medica and Pharmakognosy of the 

 Indian that we find the strongest traces of a former knowledge. 

 In every age man follows analogy, and thence the system 

 of signatures in medicine, of which traces are so common 

 among the Brazilians. But it requires a higher degree of 

 knowledge to escape from these loose analogies, and to study 

 the powers of remedies according to the principles of induc- 

 tion. The remedies of the Indians require to be fully exa- 

 mined by scientific physicians, and it is wonderful to how 

 small an extent this has been done, although the small 

 number of educated doctors who have gone to Brazil may 

 be some excuse for it. As it is, the traditions of the Indians 

 have remained almost exclusively in the hands of barbers, 

 self-taught men, and old women, and have never had their 

 truth thoroughly investigated. 



Throughout the whole of America the belief in the cold or 

 hot action of certain substances on the body is universally pre- 

 valent. Thus, bananas and rice are hot, Mandiocca flour and 

 the Caras (Caladium) are cold kinds of food. In like manner 

 their remedies are divided into hot and cold. This is however 

 probably an idea of Arabic medicine imported from the 

 Spanish peninsula, where to this day it is very generally enter- 

 tained. 



* Uncanny is the best translation we know for Unheimlich.—Tr. 



