The American aboriginal Indians naturally are of weak conftitutions, they are impubes & imberbes; but by habit from their infancy, can fuffer hunger and wood damps, better than Europeans of ftronger conftitutions : their natural temper is cruel and vindictive. Their phyficians in ordinary are the powowers clergy or conjurers, and fome old women. In their medical practice they take no notice of pulfe or urine, they do not use blood letting; they chiefly use traditional herbs; bliftering with punk or touchwood, and the blifters are converted into iffues; fweating in hot houses (an extemporary kind of bagnio) and immediately thereupon immerfion in cold water, this practice has killed many of them in eruptive fevers. The American Indians are noted for their traditional knowledge of poisonous herbs and antidotes; but I do not find that our Indian venifici are fo expert in the venificium art, as the negroes of. Africa, who give poifons, which in various, but certain periods, produce their mortal effects, fome fuddenly, fome after a number of months or years. They cure feveral poifons, for inftance, the bite of that American viper called rattle-fnake or vipera caudifona, by proper antidotes, before they produce their ufual difmal effects. + I hope these medical obfervations may be of fome ufe to our colonies; as they are in my profeffional bufinefs, by fome they may be thought pedantick, by others + May we not hope, that in future times, fome epidemical contagious diftempers, fuch as the plague, fmall-pox, and the like, may be prevented or extinguished in feminio by proper antidotes : time produces furprifing difcoveries in nature, fuch as the various phænomena of magnetifm and electricity; in the fmall-pox the late improvement of conveying it by inoculation, is found more favourable than the receiving of it the chance or natural way, as fruit from trees inoculated, furpaffes natural fruit; th's practice of inoculating for the fmall p -pox, was introduced in a very rash indiscreet manner, and by weak men; we may obferve that many of the juvantia or lædentia in medicine were discovered or rather introduced by rash fools and madmen, instance, Paracelfus's mercurial remedies. they they may be called a quackish oftentation; once for all, I declare, that I have no lucrative views, because mihi tantum fuppetit viaticæ quantum viæ. I here infert fome remarks upon the medical practice in our colonies; as no man's name is expreffed, and fome gentlemen practitioners of candour, probity, ingenuity, and good practical knowledge are excepted, these reflections may be taken in good part without further apology. In our plantations, a practitioner, bold, rafh, impudent, a lyar, bafely born and educated, has much the advantage of an honeft, cautious, modeft gentleman. In general, the phyfical practice in our colonies is fo perniciously bad, that excepting in furgery, and fome very acute cafes, it is better to let nature under a proper regimen take her course (naturæ morborum curatrices) than to truft to the honefty and fagacity of the practitioner; our American practitioners are fo rash and officious, the faying in the apocrypha, Ecclefiafticus xxxviii. 15. may with much propriety be applied to them. "He that finneth before his maker, let him fall into the " hands of the phyfician." Frequently there is more danger from the phyfician, than from the diftemper; a country where the medical practice is very irregular, is a good school to learn the lædentia, a good article in practice; but fometimes notwithstanding of male practice, nature gets the better of the doctor, and the patient recovers. Our practitioners deal much in quackery, * and quackish * I fhall mention one remarkable inftance of colony quackery, advertised in the New-York gazette, December 16, 1751. In July 1751, was committed to the care of doctor Peter Billing, an expe"rienced phyfician, and man mid-wife, and formerly in the king's "fervice, the most extraordinary and remarkable cafe that ever was 66 performed in the world, upon one Mrs. Mary Smith, fingle woman, "fifter to capt. Arthur Smith, on James river, in the county of Surry in Virginia, æt. 46; fhe had been upwards of 18 years out "of her fenfes, (most of the time raving mad) eat her own excrements, and was compleatly cured by him in two months, contrary to 66 "the quackifh medicines, as requiring no labour of thought or compofition, and highly recommended in the London quack bills (in which all the reading of many of our practitioners confifts) inadvertently encouraged by patents for the benefit of certain fees to fome offices, but to the very great damage of the fubject. How difmal is it to obferve fome apothecaries fhops wainscotted or papered with advertisements, recommending quack medicines for the profit of the fhop, but deftruction of their neighbours? this is vending of poifons for gain. In the most trifling cafes they use a routine of practice: when I first arrived in New-England, I asked G. P. a noted facetious practitioner, what was their general method of practice; he told me their practice was very uniform, bleeding, vomiting, bliftering, purging, anodyne, &c. if the illness continued, there was repetendi, and finally murderandi, nature was never to be confulted, or allowed to have any concern in the affair. What Sydenham well obferves, is the cafe with our practitioners; æger nimia medici diligentia ad plures migrat. Blood-letting and anodynes are the principal tools of our practitioners, these palliate any distemper for a fhort time; while at the fame time they confound the intentions of nature, and fix the malady; they follow Sydenham too much in giving paregoricks, after catharticks, which is playing faft and loose. "the opinion of all that knew her, no doctor in the province daring to undertake her. N. B. The contagious diftemper fo frequently happening to the bold adventurers in the wars of Venus, when re"cent, will be cured by him for three piftoles in hand, though the common price is five pound all over North-America. And all "other cafes curable in phyfick and furgery, proportionable according to the circumftances of people." He has alfo other matters to publish, particularly an elegant medicine to prevent the yellow fever, and dry gripes in the West-Indies; this is incomparable, if we except a quack advertisement published in Jamaica (immediately after the laft great earthquake) of pills to prevent perfons or their effects fuffering by earthquakes. 66 SECT MARY LAN D. Lthough recapitulations or repetitions are reckoned A tedious and not elegant; I find that our sections or colonies may be more agreeably introduced by fome general accounts or transactions with a little variation, than by an abrupt entrance into the colony affairs. The Cabots of Venetian extract obtained 1495, a patent from king Henry VII. of England, of all lands to be by them discovered weft of Europe, as to property; with a reservation of a certain royal perquifite; this king underftood perquifites; the father John, and afterwards the fon Sebastian, fitted out from Bristol; in their first voyage upon the discovery of a N. W. paffage to China, and the East-Indies, being obftructed by the ice, the failors mutinied and returned to England, without effecting any thing of confequence. Anno 1498, Sebastian ranged the continent of NorthAmerica from 40 d. to 67d. N. lat. and at several places took a nominal occupancy from difcovery, without making any fettlement; thus notwithflanding of the discoveries, we had no poffeffion for near a century of years. Sir Walter Raleigh, a noted difcovery projector, fee vol. I. p. 111, anno 1584, March 25, obtained of queen Elizabeth a patent for discoveries and fettlements in America; upon the return of the veffels of the first adventure, in honour to the virgin queen Elizabeth, the name of Virginia in general was given to the North part of the continent fo far as the gulph of St. Laurence north, to Florida fouth. In procefs of time the French VOL. II. A a made made fome small settlements in the north parts of NorthAmerica, and called them Nova Francia, or Nouvelle France; at this time known by the name of L'Accadia, (Nova-Scotia) and Canada. The Swedes, Fins and Dutch introduced by Hudfon, made fettlements upon Hudfon's or Rord rivier, and Delaware or Zuyd rivier, and called it Nova-Belgia or New-Netherlands. Thus in the beginning of the laft century the eastern coast of North-America was divided into, 1. Nova-Francia, 2. North-Virginia, comprehending the colonies of NovaScotia and New-England. 3. Nova-Belgia or New-Netherlands, at present known by the names of New-York, New-Jerfies, and Penfylvania. 4. South-Virginia, which does comprehend Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia. Upon the new discoveries, many feparate grants of districts were made to private proprietors; but afterwards for the regularity and ease of jurifdiction, the crown af fumed the jurisdictions, and reduced them to more convenient models of government. Maryland is properly a fprout from Virginia, therefore the connection of this fettlement with the first discoveries must be referred to the fection of Virginia; here we shall only obferve how and when it did fprout. See vol. I. p. 288, the Newfoundland fection. Towards the end of king James I. reign, Sir George Calvert principal fecretary of ftate, afterwards lord Baltimore, obtained a patent for fome fishing harbours in Newfoundland; by reafon of the civil troubles in England, thefe fettlements were difcontinued; being a zealous Roman catholick, with other diffenting zealots of various fectaries, he left England and retired to Virginia: as the Virginians were generally bigots to the church of England fectary, they did not ufe him fo well as he expected; and as the Virginians had not fettled further north than Potomack river, lord Baltimore went home and obtained from king Charles I. a grant of all the lands from the mouth of Potomack river in about 38 d. 10 m. N. to the Swede and Finland fettlements, which were reckoned |