Collections for an essay towards a materia medica of the United-States. Part second / By Benjamin Smith Barton.

  • Barton, Benjamin Smith, 1766-1815.
Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Collections for an essay towards a materia medica of the United-States. Part second / By Benjamin Smith Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    through the medium of' our intercourse with-the In* dians. Let not this observation induce any of you to suppose, that I am of opinion, with many travellers, and with some writers on the Materia Medina, that the savages of North* America are in possession of abso¬ lute specifics for all, or for any, of their diseases. I am too much of a skeptic in matters that regard the science of medicine to admit of the existence of any medicines that are strictly entitled to the name of spe¬ cifics ; and my inquiries concerning the diseases and remedies of our Indians have convinced me, that among these people the art of medicine is truly in a shapeless and an embryo state. (€1t is, nevertheless, certain that some of the rudest tribes of our continent are acquainted with the general medical properties of many of their vegetables. Like the rest of mankind, they are subject to diseases ; and like all nations in the savage, forms of society, many of their diseases, are violent. Nor, notwith¬ standing what has been repeatedly asserted to the contrary, are the diseases of those North-American tribes with whom we are the best acquainted either simple or hew. The diseases of our Indians, even of those tribes who have been the least influenced, or corrupted, by their intercourse with more civilized nations, are numerous, and often present themselves in the mixed or complicated forms which have been sup¬ posed to be, in a great measure, confined to nations in the more improved and luxurious stages of society. It is, I believe, a truth, that the medicines of savage and other uncultivated nations are, in general, medi¬ cines of an active kind. Thus, if we except that