Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/150

130 the practice was unpaid, wholly gratuitous; and, second, the doctors tried to effect some cures by taking the medicines themselves instead of giving them to their patients. Unfortunately, however, the good faith of Mr. Hunter, as an author, is in doubt and question. His personal history and credit are clouded, whatever be the value of his statements.

There are, however, authentic statements of real service derived from some simple medical appliances of the natives. When Cartier, in his second voyage up the St. Lawrence, in 1535, wintered on the St. Charles, near Quebec, his forlorn company, buried in ice and snow, was nearly reduced to extinction by the scurvy in its most malignant form. Twenty-five of the party perished, and not half-a-dozen were left in health. In his despair of all succor, even from the Virgin and the Saints, an Indian who had recovered from the disease directed his attention to an evergreen, probably the spruce, a strong decoction from which had wrought his cure, and the free use of which restored the health of the wretched sufferers. Many of the Jesuit Fathers, in their lonely residence with Indian tribes, were withheld by scruples from seeking acquaintance or familiarity with the Medicamenta of the Indians. They observed that the Indians were jealous of any such curiosity on their part, and, on the other hand, they were cautious about giving any countenance to Indian charms and superstitions.

Our authorities are equally discordant as to the physical robustness, the general healthfulness, and freedom from many diseases which characterized the aborigines. The Jesuit Fathers, however, — whose intercourse with the natives was earliest, most extended, most intimate and constant, and who are trustworthy in such statements, — repeatedly assert that the Indians were wholly free of many of the most annoying and painful and