ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 97 
It was treated, says Loskiel, both by scarification, cup- 
ping, anointing with oil, rubefacients, and also by poul- 
tices of a plant called jalap, the bark of the white wal- 
nut, etc. Brickell, in his History of North Carolina, 
p. 398, states: ''They have a kind of rheumatism 
which generally afflicts their legs with grievous pains 
and violent heats ; while thus tortured, they employ 
the young people continually to pour cold water upon 
the part aggrieved until such time as the pains are 
abated and they become perfectly easy, using no other 
method for this kind of disorder." Thus it will be 
seen that the American Indians early discovered the 
advantage of reducing high temperature by the appli- 
cation of cold water. 
Typhus fever was probably unknown to them, but 
the malarial and bilious fevers were common through- 
out the tide-water region and southern low lands. 
These were treated by decoctions of herbs and cold 
lotions, but the names of the ingredients have not been 
preserved. Father Hennepin, in speaking of the fevers, 
says that to cure the tertian or quartan fevers and 
agues they used a ''decoction of the bark of a tree." 
Many tribes of Indians in the beginning of fevers 
used emetics, which they prepared from a variety 
of sources, as "the spurge, thorough-wort, etc." As 
purgatives they used the euphorbium and horse-chest- 
nut, white walnut, etc. Much reliance in breaking a 
fever was placed on the hot and cold baths combined, 
a powerful reaction being produced by the transition 
from a profuse sweat to a plunge or douche of cold 
water. The want of knowledge of the true nature of 
exanthematous diseases, which were treated by the 
