ns accustomed to the use of it is a
very agreeable food. It is said the use of it within the last
few years on boards of ship has proved it to be the best
preventive known for scurvy. The use of it is becoming pretty
general among all classes in the Valley."

Kercheval even tells us what the pioneers did for medicine. When he was
a boy he saw a man brought into the fort on horseback, who had been
bitten by a rattlesnake. One of the men dragged the snake, fastened to a
forked stick, behind the victim. The body of the snake was cut into
small pieces, split and laid on the wounded flesh. This, they claimed,
would draw out the poison of the bite. When this was done, the snake was
burned to ashes. During this process, others gathered chestnut leaves
and boiled them in a pot. Wide pieces of chestnut bark were applied to
the man's wound and the chestnut-leaf mixture poured over some of the
boiled leaves which had been made into a poultice. This was kept up
during the first day and if not improved, the treatment was continued
the next.

Others suggested using boiled plantain, cooked in milk, which was given
to the patient. Walnut fern was another remedy for snakebite. The braver
patient submitted to cupping, sucking the wound or having someone cut
out the flesh around the bite.

Gunshot wounds were treated with slippery-elm bark, flax seed poultices
or by scraping the wound itself and cauterizing it.

The people suffering from rheumatism were rubbed with oil made from
rattlesnakes, bears, geese, wolves or any wild animal. This was put on a
flannel rag and bound to the parts affected.

There were all kinds of syrups made from herbs such as spike nard and
elecampane for coughs and tuberculosis. The Germans used songs or
incantations for the cure of burns, nose-bleed and toothache. For one
afflicted with erysipelas the blood of a black cat was given. Hence
there were few cats which had not lost parts of their ears or tails.

The sports of the boys in those early days were mostly those which
developed their physical bodies. The boys were given a gun almost as
soon as they were strong enough to carry one. They learned to make their
own bows and to sharpen their own arrows and many of them could shoot as
straight as the Indians who still roamed the hills.

Throwing the tomahawk was another favorite sport. This axe-like weapon
with its handle will make so many turns in a given distance. With a
little practi