Note 268 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
"Ces huiles leur sont absolument nécessaires, et ils sont mangés de vermine quand elles leur manquent."—Lafitau, tom. i., p. 59.
It is supposed by Volney that the fatal effects of the small-pox among the Indians are to be attributed to the obstacle that a skin thus hardened opposes to the eruption.—P. 416. In the most detailed account given of the ravages of this disease, Catlin particularly mentions that no eruption was visible in any of the bodies of the dead. Forster, the English translator of Professor Kalm's Travels in America, held the same opinion as Volney.
"When the Kalmucks in the Russian dominions get the small-pox, it has been observed that very few escape. Of this, I believe, no other reason can be alleged than that the small-pox is always dangerous, either when the open pores of the skin are too numerous, which is caused by opening them in a warm-water bath, or when they are too much closed, which is the case with all the nations that are dirty and greasy. All the American Indians rub their body with oils; the Kalmucks rub their bodies and their fur coats with grease; the Hottentots are also, I believe, patterns of filthiness: this shuts up all the pores, hinders perspiration entirely, and makes the small-pox always fatal among these nations."—Note by the translator of Kalm, p. 532.
"The ravages which the small-pox made this year (1750) among their Mohawk friends was a source of deep concern to these revered philanthropists. These people having been accustomed from early childhood to anoint themselves with bear's grease, to repel the innumerable tribes of noxious insects in summer, and to exclude the extreme cold ill winter, their pores are so completely shut up that the small-pox does not rise upon them, nor have they much chance of recovery from any acute disorder."—Memoirs of an American Lady, vol. i., p. 322.