Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/213

 although his chin and body were covered with thin white hairs, and his mouth was entirely devoid of teeth. Powhatan, when he first came to the knowledge of the English, was supposed to have reached his eightieth year, but he had lost but little of his youthful vigor, his figure was still unbent, and he was still capable of enduring every form of hardship.

The medicines of the Indians were few and simple, consisting of barks and roots which were used with discrimination in the ease of special diseases. Thus for the pox, an affection to which the Indians were subject, they employed sassafras, the virtue of that shrub having been tested to advantage. All medicines, whether taken internally or applied externally, were first reduced to powder and then diluted in water. The Indians had many physicians, who, in addition to their prescriptions of barks and roots, used several means of curing their patients. If, for instance, it was a case of ordinary swelling, the morbid spot was burnt with a piece of touchwood until blisters had been raised, thus drawing the inflammation to a head, or it was scarified with a splinted stone. If the wound had been caused by a tomahawk, sword or other sharp instrument, the juice of certain herbs was poured into it, but for a wound attended with a fracture of the bone, or for ulcers, the physician appears to have had no remedy that was effective. In applying his cure, he placed a bowl of water between himself and his patient; scooping up the fluid with his hands, he sucked it into his mouth, and