ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 8/ 
more important organs of the human body.* These 
they learned by the analogy the organs in man bore 
to those of the animals which they were accustomed 
to kill and cut up for food. They were cognizant of 
the fact that the lungs are the organs of respiration, 
that the heart is necessary for the circulation of the 
blood, and that a suppression of the action of the kid- 
neys would be fatal to life.f The more urgent de- 
mand for the skill of the physician would be condi- 
tions growing out of accidents, more or less severe, 
such as fracture, luxations, and incised wounds. In 
the treatment of these the red man's physician occa- 
sionally displays much common sense, mingled with 
mystery. Every warrior is expected to have some 
knowledge of the healing properties of plants and 
roots, in order that he may intelHgently treat such dis- 
eases and accidents as are likely to occur when on the 
war-path or on a hunting expedition. Their necessi- 
ties taught them efficient modes of transporting those 
who became disabled on the march. Dr. Pitcher 
describes the litters they constructed, of two poles 
Dr. Zina Pitcher, in Schoolcraft's History of the Indians of the 
United States, p. 505. 
f Dr. Brickell, a physician who lived for many years among the 
Indians of North Carolina, says: " I never observed any of them to 
practice anatomy; neither do I believe they have any knowledge 
therein, unless they make a study of the skeletons of their kings and 
great men's bones." (Brickell's History of North Carolina, p. 339.) 
Schoolcraft, vol. v., p. 501, says the Indians have "distinct names 
for the heart, lungs, liver, gall, spleen, windpipe, and other functional 
parts." In the same volume Dr. Pitcher relates an anecdote to show 
how the experienced Indian hunter, from an examination of the ovaries 
of the beaver, will predict from the scars found the number of young 
she has had, and therefore the number he may expect to trap. 
