evil consequences of inbreeding of persons closely akin are well
known to the mountaineers; but here knowledge is no deterrent, since
whole districts are interrelated to start with. Owing to the isolation
of the clans, and their extremely limited travels, there are abundant
cases like those caustically mentioned in _King Spruce_: "All Skeets and
Bushees, and married back and forth and crossways and upside down till
ev'ry man is his own grandmother, if he only knew enough to figger
relationship."

The mountaineers are touchy on these topics and it is but natural that
they should be so. Nevertheless it is the plain duty of society to study
such conditions and apply the remedy. There was a time when the Scotch
people (to cite only one instance out of many) were in still worse
case, threatened with race degeneration; but improved economic
conditions, followed by education, made them over into one of the most
vigorous of modern peoples.

When I lived up in the Smokies there was no doctor within sixteen miles
(and then, none who ever had attended a medical school). It was
inevitable that my first-aid kit and limited knowledge of medicine
should be requisitioned until I became a sort of "doctor to the
settle_ment_."[8] My services, being free, at once became popular, and
there was no escape; for, if I treated the Smiths, let us say, and
ignored a call from the Robinsons, the slight would be resented by all
Robinson connections throughout the land. So my normal occupations often
were interrupted by such calls as these:

"John's Lize Ann she ain't much; cain't you-uns give her some
easin'-powder for that hurtin' in her chist?"

"Old Uncle Bobby Tuttle's got a pone come up on his side; looks like he
mought drap off, him bein' weak and right narvish and sick with a
head-swimmin'."

"Ike Morgan Pringle's a-been horse-throwed down the clift, and he's in a
manner stone dead."

"Right sensibly atween the shoulders I've got a pain; somethin' 's gone
wrong with my stummick; I don't 'pear to have no stren'th left; and
sometimes I'm nigh sifflicated. Whut you reckon ails me?"

"Come right over to Mis' Fullwiler's, quick; she's fell down and busted
a rib inside o' her!"

On these errands of mercy I soon picked up some rules of practice that
are not laid down in the books. I learned to carry not only my own
bandages but my own towels and utensils for washing and sterilizing. I
kept my mouth shut about germ theories of disease, hav