264 THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



against the epilepsy, whether it be applied to the 

 breast, where the heart is throbbing, or whether 

 it be placed in the bezel of a ring, which is worn 

 upon the finger next to the little finger of the left 

 hand; or, finally, if it be also held in the hollow 

 of the left hand, clenched in the fist. Nor does 

 it have less power in the cure of pleurisy, dizziness, 

 and, if we may believe those familiar with it, six 

 hundred other diseases."" 



American writers have commented on this 

 superstition as peculiar to the Indians. But some 

 of the most eminent medical men of Europe in 

 the later Middle Ages endorsed the belief, and they 

 employed the hoofs of elk in the treatment of 

 epilepsy long before the first Europeans visited 

 the moose country of the New World. European 

 writers have maintained, however, that this 

 superstition among the North American Indians 

 had an origin entirely independent of European 

 influence.''^ But the belief is sufficiently peculiar 

 to warrant us in requiring quite positive evidence 

 before we accept this statement of independent 

 origin. 



""IlHus carnibus vescuntur, teguntur pelle, ungula posterioris sinistri 

 pedis sanantur. Huic ungulcB mira gucBdam & multiplex virtus inest, 

 medicorum celeherrimorum testimonio commendata. . . — Jesuit Rela^ 

 tions (Cleveland, 1896), vol. i., pp. 246-249. 



'3 See page 350. 



