118 



A JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



The following remarks on a well-known disease are extracted from 

 Dr. Kichardson's journal : — 



" Bronchocele, or Goitre, is a common disorder at Edmonton. I 

 examined several of the individuals afflicted with it, and endea- 

 voured to obtain every information on the subject from the most 

 authentic sources. The following facts may be depended upon. 

 The disorder attacks those only who drink the water of the river. 

 It is indeed in its worst state confined almost entirely to the half- 

 breed women and children, who reside constantly at the fort, and 

 make use of river water, drawn in the winter through a hole made 

 in the ice. The men, from being often from home on journies 

 through the plain, when their drink is melted snow, are less affected; 

 and, if any of them exhibit, during the winter, some incipient symp- 

 toms of the complaint, the annual summer voyage to the sea coast 

 generally effects a cure. The natives who confine themselves to 

 snow water in the winter, and drink of the small rivulets which 

 flow through the plains in the summer, are exempt from the attacks 

 of this disease. 



These facts are curious, inasmuch as they militate against the 

 generally-received opinion that the disease is caused by drinking 

 snow water; an opinion which seems to have originated from bron- 

 chocele being endemial to sub-alpine districts. 



" The Saskatchawan, at Edmonton, is clear in the winter, and also 

 in the summer, except during the May and July floods. The 

 distance from the rocky mountains, (which I suppose to be of pri- 

 mitive formation,) is upwards of one hundred and thirty miles. The 

 neighbouring plains are alluvial, the soil is calcareous, and contains 

 numerous travelled fragments of a very new magnesian limestone. 

 At a considerable distance below Edmonton, the river, continuing its 

 course through the plains, becomes turbid, and acquires a white colour. 

 In this state it is drunk by the inmates of Carlton House, where the 

 disease is known only by name. It is said that the inhabitants of 



