I02 
toner's address. 
light and allude to some of the recorded observations 
of the earliest travelers in America on this subject. 
Dr. Joseph Jones, of New Orleans, has endeavored 
to ascertain, by a microscopical and chemical examina- 
tion of the bones of the prehistoric races found in the 
stone mounds of Tennessee and Kentucky, what 
were the probabilities of syphilis having existed 
among them. He refers to the fact that John Lawson, 
the historian of North Carolina, was the first Ameri- 
can author to assert that syphilis existed among the 
Indians of North America prior to the discovery by 
Columbus."^ 
^ As Lawson's History of North Carolina is not available to many, 
I will here give his statennent in full on this subject : "At these cabins 
came to visit us the King of the Santee Nation. He brought vi^ith 
him their chief doctor or physician, who was warmly and neatly clad 
with a matchcoat, made of turkey-feathers, which makes a pretty 
show, seeming as if it was a garment of the deepest silk shag. This 
doctor had the misfortune to lose his nose by the pox, which disease 
the Indians often get by the English traders that use amongst them ; 
not but the natives of America have for many ages (by their own con- 
fession) been afflicted with a distemper much like the lues venera, 
which hath all the symptoms of the pox, being different in this only, 
for I never could learn that this country distemper, or yawes, is be- 
gun or continued with gonorrhoea, yet is attended with nocturnal pains 
in the limbs, and commonly makes such a progress as to vent part of 
the matter by bothes, and several ulcers in the body and other parts, 
oftentimes death ensuing." 
" I have known mercurial unguents and remedies work a cure, fol- 
lowing the same methods as in the pox. Several white people, but 
chiefly the Criolos, losing their palates and noses by this devouring 
vulture. It is epidemical, visiting these parts of America, which is 
often occasioned through the immoderate drinking of rum. by those 
that commonly drink water at other times. Cold nights' lodging and 
bad open houses, and more chiefly, by often wetting the feet, and eat- 
ing such quantities of pork as they do, which is a gross food, and a 
