Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
History
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
Having thus pointed out the natural diseases of the Indians, and shown
what diseases are foreign to them, we may venture to conclude, that
FEVERS, OLD AGE, CASUALTIES, and WAR are the only natural outlets
of human life. War is nothing but a disease; it is founded in the
imperfection of political bodies, just as fevers are founded on the
weakness of the animal body. Providence in these diseases seems to act
like a mild legislature, which mitigates the severity of death, by
inflicting it in a manner the least painful, upon the whole, to the
patient and the survivors.
Let us now inquire into the REMEDIES of the Indians. These, like
their diseases, are simple, and few in number. Among the first of
them we shall mention the POWERS OF NATURE. Fevers, we said formerly,
constituted the chief of the diseases among the Indians; they are
likewise, in the hands of nature, the principal instruments to remove
the evils which threaten her dissolution; but the event of these efforts
of nature, no doubt, soon convinced the Indians of the danger of
trusting her in all cases; and hence, in the earliest accounts we have
of their manners, we read of persons who were intrusted with the office
of physicians.
It will be difficult to find out the exact order in which the Indian
remedies were suggested by nature or discovered by art; nor will it be
easy to arrange them in proper order. I shall, however, attempt it, by
reducing them to NATURAL and ARTIFICIAL.
To the class of NATURAL REMEDIES belongs the Indian practice of
abstracting from their patients all kinds of stimulating aliment. The
compliance of the Indians with the dictates of nature, in the early
stage of a disease, no doubt, prevents, in many cases, their being
obliged to use any other remedy. They follow nature still closer, in
allowing their patients to drink plentifully of cold water; this being
the only liquor a patient calls for in a fever.
Sweating is likewise a natural remedy. It was probably suggested by
observing fevers to be terminated by it. I shall not inquire how far
these sweats are essential to the crisis of a fever. The Indian mode of
procuring this evacuation is as follows: the patient is confined in
a close tent, or wigwam, over a hole in the earth, in which a red hot
stone is placed; a quantity of water is thrown upon this stone, which
instantly involves the patient in a cloud of vapour and sweat; in this
situation he rushes out, and plunges himself into a river, from whence
he retires to his bed. If the remedy has been used with success, he
rises from his bed in four and twenty hours, perfectly recovered from
his indisposition. This remedy is used not only to cure fevers, but
remove that uneasiness which arises from fatigue of body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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