Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

Olbrechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 39
CAUSERS OF CONTAGIOUS DISEASE
To close this review of disease causers, there is a last category to be
oriefly mentioned, viz, the white people, and especially the white
physicians. These cause one kind of disease only, but they are the
very diseases the Cherokee stand in most frantic fear of—epidemics.
A. F. Chamberlain, in his article on Disease and Medicine—Ameri-
can, in Hastings's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, III, page 732,
draws attention to the fact that many North American Indian tribes
ascribe epidemics to the evil influence or activities of the white people,
and has illustrated his statement by an interesting citation from
Winslow's Good News from New England (1624); cf. also Dr. H. U.
Williams, The Epidemic of the Indians of New England, 1616-1620,
with Remarks on Native American Infections, in Johns Hopkins
Hospital Bulletin (Baltimore), XX (1909), pages 340-349.
The Cherokee medicine men are at odds when it comes to state
which motives drive white physicians when they let loose epidemics to
ravage the Cherokee settlements. According to some informants,
they do it simply because they hate the Indians; according to others,
in order to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims.
It is not known exactly in what ways and by v/hat methods the
white physician attains his ends, but at least one case is known, the
Cherokee claim, where it is clearly shown what means were used.
"Toward the close of the Civil War two Cherokee (one of them was
called Isaac) were captured by Union troops and kept prisoners of
war at Knoxville, Tenn. When, after the war, they were released
they were called into a room and shown a red fish (swimming in a
bowl). After they had looked at it the fish was put away again . They
came back to where they lived, and three or four days after they got
home they became feverish, and their whole body became covered
with sores; they had smallpox." (W., Og., T.)
In this case it is emphatically stated by present informants that
it was the mere looking at the fish that caused the disease and that it
was purposely shown them by the white people to bring affliction
and death on the two Cherokee and their people.
There is a generic name for contagious disease: a'"ye"lf'Do°!a'
i. e. ''he (the disease causer?) drives it (the disease) about."
As for the means used to cure or prevent it, see "Prophylaxis,"
p. 73 et seq.
DISEASE AND ITS TREATMENT
Diagnosis and Prognosis
We now have a pretty sound and tolerably complete idea of the
Cherokee views on disease and are equipped with the indispensable
elements to understand their practices with regard to the treatment
of diseases.