I have heard of two or three cases of the GOUT among the Indians, but it was only among those who had learned the use of rum from the white people. A question naturally occurs here, and that is, why does not the gout appear more frequently among that class of people, who consume the greatest quantity of rum among ourselves? To this I answer, that the effects of this liquor upon those enfeebled people, are too sudden and violent, to admit of their being thrown upon the extremities; as we know them to be among the Indians. They appear only in visceral obstructions, and a complicated train of chronic diseases. Thus putrid miasmata are sometimes too strong to bring on a fever, but produce instant debility and death. The gout is seldom heard of in Russia, Denmark, or Poland. Is this occasioned by the vigour of constitution peculiar to the inhabitants of those northern countries? or is it caused by their excessive use of spirituous liquors, which produce the same chronic complaints among them, which we said were common among the lower class of people in this country? The similarity of their diseases makes the last of these suppositions the most probable. The effects of wine, like tyranny in a well formed government, are felt first in the extremities; while spirits, like a bold invader, seize at once upon the vitals of the constitution. After much inquiry, I have not been able to find a single instance of FATUITY among the Indians, and but few instances of MELANCHOLY and MADNESS; nor can I find any accounts of diseases from WORMS among them. Worms are common to most animals; they produce diseases only in weak, or increase them in strong constitutions[7]. Hence they have no place in the nosological systems of physic. Nor is DENTITION accompanied by disease among the Indians. The facility with which the healthy children of healthy parents cut their teeth among civilized nations, gives us reason to conclude that the Indian children never suffer from this quarter. [7] Indian children are not exempted from worms. It is common with the Indians, when a fever in their children is ascribed by the white people to worms (from their being discharged occasionally in their stools), to say, "the fever makes the worms come, and not the worms the fever." The Indians appear moreover to be strangers to diseases and pains in the teeth. The employments of the Indians subject them to many accidents; hence we sometimes read of WOUNDS, FRACTURES, and LUXATIONS among them.