These Sewees Have Been Formerly A Large Nation, Though Now
Very Much Decreas'd, Since The English Hath Seated Their Land,
And all other Nations of Indians are observ'd to partake of the same Fate,
where the Europeans come, the Indians
Being a People
very apt to catch any Distemper they are afflicted withal;
the Small-Pox has destroy'd many thousands of these Natives,
who no sooner than they are attack'd with the violent Fevers,
and the Burning which attends that Distemper, fling themselves over Head
in the Water, in the very Extremity of the Disease; which shutting up
the Pores, hinders a kindly Evacuation of the pestilential Matter,
and drives it back; by which Means Death most commonly ensues;
not but in other Distempers which are epidemical, you may find among 'em
Practitioners that have extraordinary Skill and Success in removing
those morbifick Qualities which afflict 'em, not often going above 100 Yards
from their Abode for their Remedies, some of their chiefest Physicians
commonly carrying their Compliment of Drugs continually about them,
which are Roots, Barks, Berries, Nuts, &c. that are strung upon a Thread.
So like a Pomander, the Physician wears them about his Neck.
An Indian hath been often found to heal an English-man of a Malady,
for the Value of a Match-Coat; which the ablest of our English Pretenders
in America, after repeated Applications, have deserted the Patient
as incurable; God having furnish'd every Country with specifick Remedies
for their peculiar Diseases.
{Rum.}
Rum, a Liquor now so much in Use with them, that they will part with
the dearest Thing they have, to purchase it; and when they have got a little
in their Heads, are the impatients Creatures living, 'till they have enough
to make 'em quite drunk; and the most miserable Spectacles when they are so,
some falling into the Fires, burn their Legs or Arms, contracting the Sinews,
and become Cripples all their Life-time; others from Precipices break
their Bones and Joints, with abundance of Instances, yet none are so great
to deter them from that accurs'd Practice of Drunkenness, though sensible
how many of them (are by it) hurry'd into the other World before their Time,
as themselves oftentimes will confess.
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