Original - North Central Michigan College Library

anfcthe ground, and inhaling the night air, sufficientlyaccounts for their liability to these diseases.The remedies on which they most relyare emetics, cathartics, and the lancet; butespecially the last. Bleedingis so favorite anoperation among the women that they neverlose an occasion of enjoying it, whether sickor well. I have sometimes bled a dozen womenin a morning as they sat in a row along a fallentree, beginning with the first opening the veinthen proceeding to the second and so on,having three or four individuals bleeding atthe same time.In most villages, and particularly in those ofthe Chipewa, this service was required ofme; and no persuasion of mine could everinduce a woman to dispense with it.In all parts of the country and among allthe nations that I have seen, particular individualsarrogate to themselves the art ofhealing, but principally by means of pretendedsorcery; and operations of this sort are alwayspaid for by a present, made before they arebegun. Indeed, whatever, as an impostor, maybe the demerits of the operator, his rewardmay generally be said to be fairly earned bydint of corporal labor.I was once present at a performance of thiskind in which the patient was a female child ofabout twelve years of age. Several of the elderchiefs were invited to the scene; and the samecompliment was paid to myself on* account of117