Note 420 — Chapter III · COLUMBIANS. (continued 2)

The Nez Percés 'are generally healthy, the only disorders which we have had occasion to remark being of scrophulous kind.' With the Sokulks 'a bad soreness of the eyes is a very common disorder.' 'Bad teeth are very general.' The Chilluckittequaws' diseases are sore eyes, decayed teeth, and tumors. The Walla Wallas have ulcers and eruptions of the skin, and occasionally rheumatism. The Chopunnish had 'scrofula, rheumatism, and sore eyes,' and a few have entirely lost the use of their limbs. Lewis and Clarke's Trav., pp. 341, 352, 382, 531, 549. The medicine-man uses a medicine-bag of relics in his incantations. Parker's Explor. Tour, pp. 240-1. The Okanagan medicine-men are called tlaquillaughs, and 'are men generally past the meridian of life; in their habits grave and sedate.' 'They possess a good knowledge of herbs and roots, and their virtues.' I have often 'seen him throw out whole mouthfuls of blood, and yet not the least mark would appear on the skin.' 'I once saw an Indian who had been nearly devoured by a grizzly bear, and had his skull split open in several places, and several pieces of bone taken out just above the brain, and measuring three-fourths of an inch in length, cured so effectually by one of these jugglers, that in less than two months after he was riding on his horse again at the chase. I have also seen them cut open the belly with a knife, extract a large quantity of fat from the inside, sew up the part again, and the patient soon after perfectly recovered.' The most frequent diseases are 'indigestion, fluxes, asthmas, and consumptions.' Instances of longevity rare. Ross' Adven., pp. 302-8. A desperate case of consumption cured by killing a dog each day for thirty-two days, ripping it open and placing the patient's legs in the warm intestines, administering some barks meanwhile. The Flatheads subject to few diseases; splints used for fractures, bleeding with sharp flints for contusions, ice-cold baths for ordinary rheumatism, and vapor bath with cold plunge for chronic rheumatism. Cox's Adven., vol. ii., pp. 90-3, vol. i., pp. 248-51. Among the Walla Wallas convalescents are directed to sing some hours each day. The Spokanes require all garments, etc., about the death-bed to be buried with the body, hence few comforts for the sick. Wilkes' Nar., in U. S. Ex. Ex., vol. iv., pp. 426-7, 485. The Flatheads say their wounds cure themselves. De Smet, Voy., pp. 198-200. The Wascos cure rattlesnake bites by salt applied to the wound or by whisky taken internally. Kane's Wand., pp. 265, 273, 317-18. A female doctor's throat cut by the father of a patient she had failed to cure. Hines' Voy., p. 190. The office of medicine-men among the Sahaptins is generally hereditary. Men often die from fear of a medicine-man's evil glance. Rival doctors work on the fears of patients to get each other killed. Murders of doctors somewhat rare among the Nez Percés. Alvord, in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. v., pp. 652-3, 655. Small-pox seems to have come among the Yakimas and Kliketats before direct intercourse with whites. Gibbs, in Pac. R. R. Rept., vol. i., pp. 405, 408. A Nez Percé doctor killed by a brother of a man who had shot himself in mourning for his dead relative; the brother in turn killed, and several other lives lost. Ross' Fur Hunters, vol. i., p. 239.