Physiological and medical observations among the Indians of southwestern United States and northern Mexico / by Ales Hrdlicka.

  • Hrdlička, Aleš, 1869-1943.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiological and medical observations among the Indians of southwestern United States and northern Mexico / by Ales Hrdlicka. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    among others these great helps were partly or wholly lacking; hence the notes for different localities are not of equal interest or extent. .The data concerning medical practices, which among the Indians are largely thaumaturgic in character and of minor importance from the medical point of view, are especially incomplete. To acquire a thor- ough understanding of some of the features of Indian life herein touched on would require unusual opportunities and years of patient labor in a limited field. One of the main results of the present studies is the accumulation of evidence that in many points of physiological nature, as well as in those relating to medicine, there is much similarity among all the tribes visited. This likeness extends, so far as can be judged from data and observations on other tribes, far beyond the region already outlined. Another point of even greater importance is the growing evidence of similarity, though never reaching full identity, of the vital processes in Indians and whites. In elaborating these data the writer has arranged the text by sub- jects rather than by tribes. The report is prefaced with brief notes of a more general nature on conditions which determine the welfare of the native population, as an outline of these conditions is neces- sary to a fidl appreciation of the physiological and medical studies presented. II. GENERAL ENVIRONMENT The region inhabited by the tribes to which these studies relate lies between latitude 38° and 18°, west of the Rio Grande and the Mexican Central railway and east of the Rio Colorado and the Gulf of California. Much of this vast area, particularly in the north, is arid, but, on the whole, the aridity decreases from north to south. It is characterized by numerous isolated mountain groups or ridges, in which erosion has carved rugged canyons, some of great depth, between which extend large level plateaus, or llanos.'^ The slopes are usually steep, so that most of the rainfall is speedily drained off through the canyons and narrow valleys. The plateaus, mostly sandy, are cov- ered more or less with grass and other sparse vegetation, but are unfit for cultivation in the absence of artificial irrigation; but the river bottoms everywhere afford rich arable lands. The mountain summits and the numerous high table-lands are in some instances almost barren, but more often they are covered with stunted oak or cedar. On some of the great mesas, however, particularly in Mexico, beautiful forests of oak and pine extend for many miles. a A thorough geographic, geologic, and climatologic summary of this whole area is wanting. Contri- butions to this subject, however, will be found in Haydon's, Wheeler's, Emory's, and Powell's, contributions, and in the Vacific Hallway Surveys. See N. H. Carton's Catalogue and Index of Con- tributions to North American Geology, 17.32-1891, Bulletin 127, United States Geological Survey, Wash- ington, 1896.