Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

454 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
of Canelos, and my coffee gave out, I made tea of
guayiisa leaves, and found it very palatable. The
that it becomes
Jibaros make the infusion so strong
positively
emetic. The guayiisa- pot, carefully
covered up, is kept simmering on the fire all night,
and when the Indian wakes up in the morning he
drinks enough guayiisa to make him vomit, his
notion being that if any food remain undigested on
the stomach, that organ should be aided to free
itself of the encumbrance. Mothers give a strong
draught of it, and a feather to tickle the throat with,
to male children of very tender age. I rather think
its use is tabooed to females of all ages, like caapi
on the Uaupes. Indians are not by any means so
solicitous to empty the bowels early in the day as
to clear out the stomach. On the all
contrary,
South America I have noticed that when
through
the Indian has a hard day's work before him, and
has only a scanty supply of food, he prefers to go
until night without an evacuation, and he has
greater control over the calls of nature than the
white man has. Their maxim, as an Indian at San
:
Carlos it expressed to me
'
Quien caga
in rude Spanish, is
de manana es guloso "
(he who goes
to stool in a is morning a glutton).
From all that has been said, it may be gathered
that the domestic medicine of the South American
Indians is chiefly hygienic, as such medicine ought
to be, it being of greater daily importance to
preserve
*
health than to cure disease. If their
physicians be mere charlatans, their lack of skill
may often be compensated by the ignorant faith of
their patients and ; their methods are scarcely more