178 
MEDICAL REPORT OF EASTERN DIVISION. 
saline water. These slight ailments yielded very readily to treatment, and but one man was 
prevented thereby from duty, and confined to bed. His illness was promoted and aggravated 
by his own gross imprudence. With proper choice of camping grounds we could nearly always 
obtain good water, and plenty of it. 
2. The route passed over between Fort Union and Fort Benton, by way of the valleys of the 
Missouri, Milk, Marias, and Teton rivers. 
The command at this time numbered over one hundred persons, and the time occupied on the 
inarch was between August Sth and September 8th. The length of this part of the march was 
three hundred and seventy-five miles. 
Three men came on the sick report: St. Louis, (teamster,) epileptic convulsions; Osborne, 
(cook,) partial paralysis; Sergeant Collins, (corps sappers and miners,) dysentery. 
The two first mentioned would probably have been attacked with the above complaints 
whether they had been employed by the expedition or not. St. Louis had been subject to fits 
for several years. It was thought best to send him in a boat with a party which left Fort Benton 
for St. Louis, Missouri, under charge of Lieutenant Saxton. Osborne continued with the main 
party until it reached St. Mary’s village. He then had another attack of the paralysis, and 
was left with the men under Lieutenant Mullan’s charge. Collins’s attack seemed to be owing to 
indigestion, and consequent diarrhoea, kept up and aggravated by riding on horseback. He was 
too unwell to proceed farther with the train, and was consequently sent down the river with 
Lieutenant Saxton. The health of the rest of the party was exceedingly good. 
3—Contains that portion of our route between Fort Benton and Fort Colville, passing over and 
through the Rocky, Bitter Root, and Cceur d’Alene mountains. 
This country is well wooded, and is abundantly supplied with swift running cold spring brooks. 
No cases of sickness occurred in the main command. At St. Mary’s I was detailed on special 
service, which necessarily involved my absence from the main party until we reached Fort Van¬ 
couver. 
Section 4, embraces our route through a country almost destitute of timber between Fort 
Colville and the Dalles; the health of the command still continued excellent. 
Section 5. March between the Dalles and Puget sound, via Fort Vancouver. 
This district is well wooded, and abundantly supplied with good water. Three cases came 
on the sick report as follows: The first was that of a mule-packer, who had contracted syphilis. 
The second was a case of severe acute articular rheumatism in the person of a dragoon private. 
This was produced by his lying out in the wet all night, during a fit of intoxication. The rest 
of the men were all healthy, except one of the gentlemen of the scientific corps, who became 
slightly indisposed in consequence of the sudden change from being in the open air, to in-door 
confinement at Vancouver. 
On reviewing the whole route, the unequalled and unparalleled good health of the command 
during a march of over eighteen hundred miles appears remarkable ; especially when we consider 
the hardships and exposures necessarily incident to such a trip. Not a case of ague or fever 
occurred. Such a state of health could only be accounted for by the great salubrity of the countries 
passed through, and their freedom from malarious or other endemic disease. 
All the Indian tribes which came under my observation east of the Rocky mountains seemed 
free from epidemic disease, at least temporarily free. Their principal complaints are chronic 
inflammations of the eye and phthisis pulmonalis. Lues venerea and gonorrhoea prevail, to a 
certain extent, among the Assiniboins and Gros Ventres; but the Blackfeet proper, Piegans, 
and Blood Indians, as far as I could learn, are nearly exempt from these diseases. 
The Indians seen between the Rocky mountains and Fort Colville belong to the Flathead 
and Pend d’Oreille or Kalispelm tribes. Owing to the good principles inculcated by the mission¬ 
aries they are very virtuous in their habits ; consequently syphilis is almost unknown among 
them. Phthisis pulmonalis is very common among them, especially among the last mentioned tribe. 
