The HEMORRHAGES which sometimes follow their wounds, are restrained by plunging themselves into cold water, and thereby producing a constriction upon the bleeding vessels. Their practice of attempting to recover DROWNED PEOPLE, is irrational and unsuccessful. It consists in suspending the patient by the heels, in order that the water may flow from his mouth. This practice is founded on a belief that the patient dies from swallowing an excessive quantity of water. But modern observations teach us that drowned people die from another cause. This discovery has suggested a method of cure, directly opposite to that in use among the Indians; and has shown us that the practice of suspending by the heels is hurtful. I do not find that the Indians ever suffer in their limbs from the action of COLD upon them. Their mokasons[8], by allowing their feet to move freely, and thereby promoting the circulation of the blood, defend their lower extremities in the day-time, and their practice of sleeping with their feet near a fire, defends them from the morbid effects of cold at night. In those cases where the motion of their feet in their mokasons is not sufficient to keep them warm, they break the ice, and restore their warmth by exposing them for a short time to the action of cold water[9]. [8] Indian shoes. [9] It was remarked in Canada, in the winter of the year 1759, during the war before last, that none of those soldiers who wore mokasons were frost-bitten, while few of those escaped that were much exposed to the cold who wore shoes. We have heard much of their specific antidotes to the VENEREAL DISEASE. In the accounts of these anti-venereal medicines, some abatement should be made for that love of the marvellous, and of novelty, which are apt to creep into the writings of travellers and physicians. How many medicines which were once thought infallible in this disease, are now rejected from the materia medica! I have found upon inquiry that the Indians always assist their medicines in this disease, by a regimen which promotes perspiration. Should we allow that mercury acts as a specific in destroying this disease, it does not follow that it is proof against the efficacy of medicines which act more mechanically upon the body[10]. [10] I cannot help suspecting the anti-venereal qualities of the lobelia, ceanothus and ranunculus, spoken of by Mr. Kalm, in the Memoirs of the Swedish Academy. Mr. Hand informed me, that the Indians rely chiefly upon a plentiful use of the decoctions of the pine-trees for the cure of the venereal disease. He added, moreover, that he had often known this disease prove fatal to them. There cannot be a stronger mark of the imperfect state of knowledge in medicine among the Indians, than their method of treating the SMALL-POX. We are told that they plunge themselves in cold water in the beginning of the disease, and that it often proves fatal to them.