332 



The Aborigines of Brazil. 





ground for assuming, that they are by no means in their pri- 

 mitive condition, but in that state of moral and of social ad- 

 vancement, which meets us as an inexplicable riddle among 

 nations in a similar stage of progress. 



The sources of the Indian's knowledge of remedies. 



We now come to enquire, how it happens that the rude 

 Indian has discovered certain medical properties in plants ex- 

 cept by tradition, which however in many cases does not seem 

 to have helped him. The most important aid has been derived 

 from that perception of analogy, which lies so deep in the na- 

 ture of man at every stage of his progress. He compares 

 the physical characters of certain natural objects with simi- 

 lar ones of his own body, and is led to the doctrine of signa- 

 tures, on which the whole materia medica of antiquity, of the 

 Arabs, and of the middle ages, and indeed partially that 

 of the present day, is found to rest. In this manner the 

 Indian thinks plants and parts of plants of a red colour are 

 related to the blood, and yellow ones to the gall and liver. 



Thus he applies the blood-red fungus Boletus Sanguine- 

 us, Urupe-taud in vomiting of blood ; dark, brown or red 

 astringent barks of several trees for erysipelas and chronic 

 eruptions and swellings ; the yellow juice of a species of Vismia, 

 the yellow wood of species of Abuta and Cocculus in diseases 

 of the liver and of the gall-bladder : he considers the snake- 

 like root of the Pareira brava, an efficacious remedy for 

 snake-bites, as likewise the tubers and the juice of the stalks 

 of the Dracontium polyphyllum, the foot- stalks of whose 

 leaves resemble in their dark marbled surface the skin of the 

 rattle-snake. He finds some resemblance between the form 

 of the testicles, in Tupi Capyd, and the roots of various 

 kinds of Caapid (i. e., herba testiculi) Dorstenia, and there- 

 fore considers them powerful stimulants in general debility 

 and in nervous fever. He observes that the milky juice of 

 many Euphorbiacece, Figs, and Apocynece, when it issues 



