go 
toner's address. 
while they were averse to enlarging wounds, never- 
theless they were aware of the advantage of having 
them heal from the bottom. To insure this, they in- 
serted tents of slippery-elm bark in deep wounds to 
keep them open.* According to Brickell, from the 
manner in which the Indians of North Carolina treated 
the prisoners taken in war, and whom they desired to 
keep as slaves, it is evident they knew that in amputa- 
tion it was important to preserve a flap of skin to cover 
the end of the bone. The method they adopted for 
preventing the slave from running away was to maim 
him by cutting off one-half of each foot. They 
flayed the skin from the setting in of the toes to the 
middle of the foot, cut off one-half of his feet, wrapping 
the skin over the wounds and then healing them.^f 
Lawson, in his History of North Carolina, testifies 
to the same practice, and to their skill in arrest- 
ing hemorrhage. Alexander Henry, before re- 
ferred to, records the case of a man wounded by 
an axe penetrating the lung, which was followed by 
profuse hemorrhage. Air escaped from the lung 
through the opening, yet this was so successfully 
treated the Indian was alive twenty years afterward.^ 
Loskiel says a hunter accidentally dislocated his 
■^The practice of introducing slippery- elm tents into deep wounds 
is described by Pitcher. Hunter, already referred to, alludes to the 
same practice, and to the use of the pulverized bark in poultices, p. 398. 
-(-Dr. John Brickell, in his Natural History of North Carolina, pub- 
lished in Dublin, 1737, pp. 321 and 399 ; John Lawson, in his History 
of North Carolina, pp. 322, 323, records the same fact and in nearly 
identical language, so that there is not much doubt but the flap oper- 
ation in amputation was practiced as early as 1700 in North Carolina. 
J Henry's Travels, already cited, pp. 124, 125. 
