The attitude of the authors of these early
observations is a mixture of curiosity, wonder, and--on
occasion--admiration.

Henry Spelman, one of the early colonists, wrote of Jamestown and
Virginia as they were in 1609 and 1610. He described the manner of
visiting with the sick among the Indians. According to Spelman, the
"preest" laid the sick Indian upon a mat and, sitting down beside him,
placed a bowl of water and a rattle between them. Taking the water into
his mouth and spraying it over the Indian, the priest then began to
beat his chest and make noises with the rattle. Rising, he shook the
rattle over all of his patient's body, rubbed the distressed parts with
his hands, and then sprinkled water over him again.

Like the colonist, the Indian tried to draw out blood or other matter
from the sick or wounded person. The method often used for releasing
the ill humor from a painful joint or limb must have caused
considerable suffering but may have offered certain advantages in
preventing fatal infection. If the affected part could bear it, the
Indian thrust a smoldering pointed stick deep into the sore place and
kept it there until the excess matter could drain off. Another
technique for burning and opening had a small cone of slowly burning
wood inserted in the distressed place, "letting it burn out upon the
part, which makes a running sore effectually."

Still another method for treating a wound was for the priest to gash
open the wound with a small bit of flint, suck the blood and other
matter from it, and finally apply to it the powder of a root. A
colonist in describing the practice wrote that "they have many
professed phisitions, who with their charmes and rattels, with an
infernall rowt of words and actions, will seeme to sucke their inwarde
griefe from their navels or their grieved places." Judging by other
accounts written during the century concerning Indian medicine, the
powdered root may well have been sassafras, of which there was an
abundance in the Jamestown area. The priest dried the root in the
embers of a fire, scraped off the outer bark, powdered it, and bound
the wound after applying the powder.

Not only did the native American resort to a crude form of bloodletting
but he practiced sweating as well--which was also common to
seventeenth-century European medical practice. In Captain John Smith's
description of Virginia it was noted that when troubled with "dropsies,
swellings, aches, and such