Document généré le 1 oct. 2021 15:20 Man and Nature L'homme et la nature The Art of Medicine in Pre-Loyalist New Brunswick John Mackay Volume 4, 1985 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1011842ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1011842ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle ISSN 0824-3298 (imprimé) 1927-8810 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Mackay, J. (1985). The Art of Medicine in Pre-Loyalist New Brunswick. Man and Nature / L'homme et la nature, 4, 139–154. https://doi.org/10.7202/1011842ar Copyright © Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle, 1985 services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ 9. The Art of Medicine in Pre~Loyalist New Brunswick There is of course an inherent contradiction in the expression 'Pre- Loyalist' New Brunswick, because in a political and geographic sense New Brunswick only came into existence in 1784, the year following the arrival of the Loyalists, and in fact its exact boundaries were not defined until many years later. In 1713, by the Treaty of Utrecht, France ceded 'Acadia with its ancient limits' to Britain. Unfortunately, there was no agreement on what constituted the 'ancient limits'.1 The French claimed they had surrendered only the mainland of modern Nova Scotia, bound• ed by the Isthmus of Chignecto, whereas the British claimed that 'Acadia' included the entire mainland south of the St. Lawrence River. So the dispute over ownership, which was already a century old, continued for another fifty years until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, when the French claim to title was finally abandoned. Even then, the British took little interest in the area until the end of the American Revolution in 1783, when the arrival of thousands of Loyalists within a few months changed its character forever. During most of the 18th century what is now New Brunswick con• sisted of a wilderness of forests and lakes, lying between New France (Quebec), New England (Maine) and New Scotland (Nova Scotia), of which the British at least considered it to be a part. Its boundaries were poorly defined, its ownership was constantly disputed, and its history from a European perspective was largely obscured by the more colorful activities of Quebec and Louisbourg, Halifax and Boston. There were no MAN AND NATURE / L'HOMME ET LA NATURE IV/1985 0824-3298/85/04OO-OI39 $01.25/®CS.E.C.S./S.C.E.D.S. 140 important battles, no large cities or fortifications, and not much direct contact with European civilization, an essential fact in the appreciation of the character of the indigenous health care system. Who lived in New Brunswick before the Loyalists? Apart from a hand• ful of New England traders located for example at Maugerville near pre• sent day Fredericton, and at the mouth of the Saint John River, the entire population consisted of two groups: Indians and Acadians. INDIAN MEDICINE It is hard to say just how many Indians lived in New Brunswick in the eighteenth century. There was no accurate census, and estimates vary, no doubt in part because of the effects of migration, famine and epidemic, as well as the uncertainty of whether figures refer to all members of a certain tribe, or only those in a particular geographic area. In comparing various sources, it seems a reasonable guess that the total Micmac population in mid-eighteenth century was on the order of three thousand,2 of whom less than half lived in what is now New Brunswick. Allowing for a smaller number of Malecites, we may conclude that the total Indian population of New Brunswick in the eighteenth century was not more than two or three thousand. It is believed to have been much higher before European contact,3 falling to its lowest point around 1700. This was followed by a gradual increase in the eighteenth century, relative stability in the nineteenth, and a rapid increase since 1900. The Indians of New Brunswick were a nomadic people who lived by hunting, fishing and gathering. The search for food dominated their lives.4 They did not practise agriculture prior to contact with Europeans, and firmly resisted various European efforts to turn them into farmers.5 The Indians placed little value on accumulating a surplus of goods or food either individually or collectively. Their tools were made of wood, stone, bone or shell, and their food consisted of fish (such as smelt, cod, lobster, crabs, eel, clams and oysters), game (such as seals, walrus, beaver, moose, bear and wildfowl), roots, berries and nuts. They had some knowledge of preservation by smoking and drying, but in general they tended not to stockpile. Even within this limited and precarious source of food they were inhibited by numerous taboos. For example they tended not to eat carnivores or pregnant females; it was believed that to eat a chickadee would make one a liar and it was forbidden to kill a porcupine near camp. There was a marked division of labor. At the risk of oversimplifica- 141 Hon, one might say that men hunted, fought and made canoes, snowshoes and weapons, while the women did everything else.6 The average amount of territory to support two hunters and their families has been estimated at four hundred square miles.7 Although the Indians of New Brunswick clung to their aboriginal lifestyle for two cen• turies following European contact, in the end as always the Europeans wreaked devastation on the Indians. Following the end of the French Regime there came an increasingly rapid decline in both culture and in~ dependence, although the population, which had decreased markedly since pre-contact, began to stabilize. From the mid-sixteenth century, missionary priests had undermined the authority of the tribal elders and consequently of tribal traditions, while European technology made the Indians increasingly dependent on manufactured trade goods, less and less able to survive by means of their original primitive artefacts.8 Alcohol and epidemics completed their downfall. Severe famines in 1729, 1733, 1737 were interspersed with a smallpox epidemic originating around Louisbourg in 1732-1733. The Indians' pre-contact life apparently was healthy. Studies of pre- contact skeletal remains suggest an average life expectancy of 37 which was only attained by Europeans in the nineteenth century,9 and there are many anecdotal reports of individuals reaching advanced ages. Early descriptions of the New Brunswick Indians emphasized their vigor, and strength, and the absence of disease and deformity. One of their chief medical problems was digestive disorders in both in• fants and the aged.10 The practise of making the baby's first mouthful a swallow of fish oil or melted fat11 may have contributed to infant mor• tality, but the danger for adults was the gluttonous manner of eating. Game was consumed all at one time, frequently followed by a fast of many days. From 15-20 pounds of meat per person might be consumed at a sitting.12 Food was typically undercooked, so parasitism was probably common. The restricted degrees of consanguinity were few,13 so one may speculate that hereditary disease may have been common. Childbirth was a simple process that took place in the open rather than inside a wigwam. The mother was delivered on her hands and knees; a decoction of ash leaves was prepared to ease the pain and binders were used on the abdomen of both mother and baby to control postpartum bleeding. As soon as the baby was born it was washed in cold water, a practise which no doubt promoted natural selection, especially in winter. On the other hand, it should be noted that the Indians' treatment of children was in general much more humane than that prevailing in eigh• teenth-century Europe. 142 Medicine among the Indians had two levels, magical and practical.14 They believed that evil influences caused all disease not due to an ob• vious external cause. It might be due to the malevolent spirit of an of• fended animal or instigated by a human enemy with supernatural powers. It is important to realize that the supernatural played a pre• eminent part in every aspect of Indian life. Everything, animate or in• animate, had a spirit power which governed its existence and its relation• ship to humans. Most of the health problems suffered by the Indians were associated with exposure, accident and famine. Early explorers remarked on the absence of palsy, dropsy, gout, rheumatism, stone, bilary colic and asthma among the natives, and only after the arrival of Europeans did they suffer from typical European diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, typhus, typhoid, malaria, yellow fever, tuber• culosis, venereal disease and alcoholism. The Indians believed that dancing preserved health, bleeding preserv• ed youth, and they took sauna baths in specially constructed pits or wigwams. They massaged their bodies all over with seal oil, which helped them withstand heat, cold and mosquitoes. Scurvy was prevalent, and got worse when the Indians became depen• dent on white settlement in times of famine.