Favorite Viands of Uncivilized Races and Their Preparation.

North America.

EDITOR MEDICAL WORLD:-The food of the Indians of the northern regions of North America is three-quarters animal, and in the southern part three-quarters vegetable.

The most important food plant of the Indians is maize, next to which come beans, peas, potatoes, squashes, pumpkins, melons and chile. Uncultivated plants, seeds, roots and flowers of grasses are used as greens for flavoring, etc. In the southwestern parts, cactus and yucca fruits, mesquite beans, and the roasted fleshy leaves and leaf matrix of the agave are the most important elements of food supply. Tuckaho and other fungi are used for food by the eastern Indians, and tuckaho bread is well known in the South. The tribes of the North Pacific region make much use of the sweet inner bark of the hemlock and spruce. Sweets of various kinds, savors, flavors and condiments are favorite Indian foods. Salt is in general use, altho tabooed by the Onondagas. Chile, an article of Mexican origin, became known thruout the southwest, and saffron, an introduced plant, is still used to flavor and color food, as are also parts of the squash vine. Thruout New England and southeast Canada the Indians produced sugar by evaporating maple sap, while in the southwest it is derived from the willow and the agave. In some localities clay is eaten, either alone or mixed with food, or is sometimes taken in connection with wild potatoes. Buffalo, deer of various species, and fishes are the animals most depended on by Indians for food, and the porcupine is said to have been the chief food animal of the Montagnais.

Apache and Navajo Indians will not eat fish or the flesh of the bear or the beaver. The Texas coast Indians of bygone days ate roots principally. Occasionally they fed on deer and fish, but when very hungry, and other food could not be had, they ate spiders, the eggs of ants, worms, lizards, salamanders, snakes and vipers. They also ate earth and wood, the dung of deer, etc. The bones of fishes, snakes and other animals they beat to a powder, which also they readily devoured.

The Maidu Indians of California, in addition to consuming all kinds of vegetable products, eat badgers, skunks, wild-cats and mountain lions; practically all birds excepting buzzards; yellowjacket larvæ, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets, and even salmon bones and the vertebræ of deer. Like the Indians, the Eskimos prefer cooked food, and altho their name signifies "eaters of raw flesh," they eat uncooked food only when absence of fuel prevents cooking. Among the Pueblo Indians cooking is said to have reached a high degree of proficiency. Most of the tribes know how to prepare really savory and nourishing dishes, some of which have been adopted by civilized people-such as hominy, maize, samp, succotash, etc.

The Iroquois Indians and other eastern tribes cook maize with beans, meat or vegetables. The Pueblos add wood-ash lye to their "paper-bread," and prepare their bread and mushes with meat, greens, or oily seeds and nuts, besides such condiments as chile.

The methods adopted by Indians for preserving

their foods are simple and effective. Vegetable foodstuffs are preserved by drying, and among the less sedentary tribes are strung or tied in bundles for facility of transportation or storage. The preservation of maize, mesquite beans, acorns, etc., brought about the introduction of granaries and other storage devices. Animal food, owing to its perishable character, is often dried or frozen, but at times is preserved by smoking. Dried meat is sometimes pulverized and mixed with berries, grease, etc., thus forming pemmican, which is highly valued for use on journeys. Fruits are pulped and dried for preservation. Nuts are often ground before being stored, as are also maize, grass seeds and the legumes. Potatoes and other tubers are frequently stored in the ground or near the fireplace.

The Indians often quench their thirst with drinks made from fruit, such as cider from manzanita berries, as used by various California tribes, and a beverage from cactus fruit by the Pima and neighboring tribes of Arizona.

Infusions of leaves, roots, etc., of various herbs are drunk by the Indians as medicine, but no stimulating beverage of the character of tea or coffee is known to them.

South America.

In South America the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego obtain their food chiefly from the sea. Mussels and limpets, sea-urchins, etc., form a considerable part of their diet. They prize seals and sea-otters very highly, too, but their great feast takes place when a whale is stranded on their shores. They also indulge in a kind of fungus which grows on the antarctic beech tree. The gelatinous mass of this fungus is pale, without much taste or odor.

The Patagonians eat anything in the animal line, be it guanaco, rhæa or cavy, but they have rather a repugnance to the flesh of dogs. Their chief dainty is the flesh of a young mare, but they prefer animals that have been disabled by an accident. They are fond of some roots, too, such as "tus" and "chalas." The former is something like a yam, and the latter a long slender root, scarcely as thick as an ordinary pencil. Their favorite drink is made from the juice of barberries mixed with water, but not fermented.

The Araucanians, living northwest from Patagonia, are large consumers of mutton, but are very cruel in their preparation of it. Their greatest delicacy is "nachi," which is obtained from a sheep. The wretched animal is hung up alive by the forelegs, a quantity of cayenne pepper and salt is mixed in a bowl, and the throat of the sheep is cut so as to open the windpipe, down which the operator stuffs salt and pepper as fast as he can. He then draws out the jugular vein, cuts it, and turns the end into the severed windpipe, down which the blood flows, so as to mix with the pepper and salt and carry them into the lungs, which distended with a mixture of salt, pepper and blood, form the "nachi." They have two national drinks-"chica" and "mudai." The former is a sort of cider, while the latter almost exactly resembles the kava of the Polynesians, meal being substituted, however, for the kava root.

In Central South America, the Mundurucús make cassava bread and tapioca. They also feed on yams, plantains and other vegetables. They delight in monkey flesh, too. Their chief fruits

are the so-called "nuts" of the Lecythis and the Bertholetia, which is familiarly known as Brazil nut. The fruit of the Lecythis is popularly known as "monkey-cup," because the hard envelope, or pericarp, which incloses the seeds, has a movable lid, which falls off when the fruit is ripe and enables the monkeys to draw the seeds out of the case. The Brazil nuts are very large and heavy, a number of them being inclosed in a thick and hard pericarp. In order to protect themselves, the natives wear thick wooden caps when they go after Brazil nuts, so as to prevent being injured, or perhaps even killed, by these nuts falling on them.

The tribes inhabiting the region of the Amazon River depend chiefly for their food on the beasts, birds and fishes which they capture. They also eat several kinds of vegetable food, the principal one being the cassava, which is mainly produced from the plant known as Jatropha manihot, whose juice is so poisonous that a small dose will produce death. The venomous principle is very volatile, so that the substance which in its raw state is a deadly poison, becomes, when cooked, a wholesome article of food. The cassava roots are reduced to shavings like those of the horseradish. The juice is then pressed out as far as possible and the cassava is baked on circular iron plates. Cassava is largely used under the name of "seminola." The juice becomes a deep brown liquid by boiling and is then known as "cassareep," which is extensively used as a sauce. The natives of Guiana make an intoxicating liquor called "piwarri" from cakes of the cassava bread, which are thrown into a vessel and have boiling water poured over them. Other cakes are masticated and mixed with those in the vessel. Fermentation then takes place rapidly, and in a short time the liquor is ready to drink. The natives are immoderately fond of this disgusting preparation. Australia.

With the aborigines of Australia the kangaroo and pigeon are favorites, but they will devour any beast, bird, reptile, or fish, and they also eat a considerable amount of various kinds of insects. Honey, too, is highly prized. The bugong moth (a heliconidæ butterfly) is highly esteemed. These moths collect around masses of granite in enormous quantities. The natives prepare them for eating in the following manner: A circular space is cleared and on it a fire is lighted and kept burning till the ground is hot enough, when the fire is removed, the ashes cleared away, and the moths are placed on the heated ground and stirred about till the down and wings drop off. The insects are then placed on pieces of bark and winnowed in order to separate the dust, wings, etc. They are then eaten, or later are placed in a wooden vessel called "walbum" or "calibum," and are pounded into masses or cakes resembling lumps of fat. The bodies of these insects are large and filled with a yellowish oil, sweet to the taste, like nuts. Snakes intended for food are captured alive. The carpet snake, sometimes ten or twelve feet in length, is a favorite. It furnishes an abundance of meat, and the fat is said to be especially palatable. Turtles are

eaten.

New Zealand.

In New Zealand the aborigines have a wide variety of food supplies, especially the "kumera,"

or sweet potato, which is carefully and extensively cultivated. The bud of the nikau-palm, a species of Areca, is highly prized, being sometimes eaten raw, tho more often it is cooked like the kumera. In December they gather the pulpous stems of one of the large tree-ferns (Cyathea medullaris). A curious article of vegetable food is the cowdie gum, which issues from a species of pine. It is a clear, yellowish resin, and is imported into England, where it is used as a varnish. The pawa, a species of Haliotis, is a favorite shell food with the New Zealanders. Mussels and oysters, also, are very plentiful, especially the cockscomb oyster (Ostræa criststa). They still practise cannibalism, but not so much from a love of the taste of human flesh, as from the superstitious idea that any one who eats the flesh of another becomes endowed with all of the best qualities of the victim. For this reason a chief will often only eat the eye, which is regarded as the seat of the soul. The women and young children are usually not permitted to eat human flesh, but among the adult men the palms of the hands and the breast are supposed to be the best parts for food.

New Caledonia.

In New Caledonia, to the east of Australia, cannibalism is practised, but human flesh is only eaten as a great luxury, and is not an ordinary article of diet. Roots of various kinds are eaten, as well as cocoanut and other fruits. Shellfish are also much enjoyed. Two very strange articles of diet are in use among these people. The first is a spider (“nongui”) which spins large and thick nets in the woods. They are cooked in a covered earthen jar, which is set on a brisk fire. The other is a kind of clay-a soft, greenish steatite-which crumbles very easily and has the property of distending the stomach, thus allaying the cravings of hunger, altho it contains no nourishment.

Fiji Islands.

The Fiji Islanders are much given to royal feasts. Banquets are planned months ahead. Vegetables are planted expressly for these festive occasions, and no one is allowed to kill pigs or gather fruit for quite a while before the festival, at which time the turtle-fishers get very busy. Yams and root-crops are dug up, enormous ovens are constructed and fuel is chopped. The Fijians are skilful cooks, but unfortunately they are also devoted to cannibalism, and so are their neighbors, the Solomon Islanders. They call human flesh "bakolo," and so highly is it honored that it is eaten with a fork instead of with the fingers.

Friendly Islands.

The natives of the Friendly Islands delight in kava-drinking, which is practised thruout the greater part of Polynesia. It is made from the root of the pepper tree called Piper methysticum (intoxicating pepper-tree). The making and drinking of kava by these people are attended by elaborate ceremonies.

Samoa.

The food of the Samoans consists principally of vegetables. They raise taro, yams, breadfruit, bananas, cocoanuts and plantain. Their strangest article of diet is the "palolo," a kind of annelid worm allied to the Nereids, which appears only in limited localities and at certain times. It

rises directly from the bottom of the sea to the surface, appearing first about 4 o'clock in the morning, and continuing to increase in numbers until after sunrise, when they gradually disappear. When caught, the "palolos" are wrapped in breadfruit leaves and cooked in ovens.

Borneo.

The Dyaks of Borneo have an odd custom of cooking fowls without removing the feathers. When roasted, the birds are torn joint from joint. They also like food in a nearly putrid state, such as fish or mollusks in an advanced stage of decomposition, eggs black from age, or rotten fruit, the chief of which is "durian." It is about as large as a cocoanut, slightly oval and covered with a thick, tough skin armed with sharp spines. It tastes like a rich butter-like custard highly flavored with almonds and intermingled with wafts of flavor of cream cheese, onion sauce, brown sherry and other incongruities. The national drink of the Dyaks, called "tauk," resembles thin milk, and is very intoxicating. Its odor has been compared to that of "five hundred negroes drunk in a slave-pen." When swallowed, the victim suffers from suffocation. It is consumed in enormous quantities at their feasts, the women forcing the men to drink immoderately.

Andaman Islands.

The Andaman Islanders, in the Bay of Bengal, are cannibals when urged by extreme hunger, but their general food consists of pigs, turtles, fish, etc., which are cooked in a very simple and ingenious oven. The pigs are small and black, with spare, hard bristles that look like wire. "They have," says Captain Mouatt, "a leer that makes them look like so many Mephistopheles, who have chosen to assume that peculiar form, in many respects a very appropriate one; for, if they are not so many little devils, they are certainly possessed by them."

South Africa.

The Kaffirs of South Africa consider it a great luxury to eat beef and drink sour milk. The latter is mixed with meal into a porridge, but fresh milk is never used, being regarded as very indigestible. The milk is emptied from the pail into a large store-basket, which already contains milk in the second stage. Soon a sort of fermentation takes place, and in a short time the whole of the liquid is converted into a semisolid mass and a watery fluid something like whey. The latter is drawn off and used as a drink. The remainder forms a thick, clotted substance called "a-masi," which forms the Kaffir's “staff of life.” It has a slightly acid flavor. The Kaffirs enjoy the flesh of the antelope known as koodoo. It has an excellent flavor, and the marrow taken from the leg bones is a special luxury. It is often eaten not only without cooking, but while still warm. Rhinoceros flesh is considered very tempting, and their intestines, as well as those of several other kinds of animals, are regarded by the Kaffirs as the best parts of the animals for food. The feet of captured elephants are eaten after being baked, the whole of the tendons, fat, bone, etc., being converted into a gelatinous mass. Elephants' trunks are cut into thick slices and baked with the feet. An oily fat is obtained from the skulls. The rest of the meat is converted into "bil tongue," by cutting it

into strips and drying it in the sun. Honey, too, is a favorite food with the people, and they are very expert at attacking the nests and removing the combs. Nothing can induce a Kaffir to eat fish or reptiles.

The Kaffirs have a fermented drink, which is a kind of beer called "Outchualla," made from the grain of maize or millet. As it ferments, a scum rises to the top. This is removed and poured into a vessel thru a strainer.

Dr. Lichstenstein, in his well-known work on the Bushmen, or Bosjesmen, of South Africa, remarks:

When a piece of meat was given a Bushman, half rising he stretched out a distrustful arm, snatched it hastily and stuck it immediately into the fire. He soon took the meat from the embers, wiped it hastily with his left arm and tore out with his teeth large half-raw bits, which I could see going down his meager throat. At length, when he came to the bones and sinew, as he could not manage these with his teeth, he had recourse to a knife which hung around his neck, and with this he cut off the piece which he held in his teeth, close to the mouth, without touching his nose or eyes. When the bone was picked clean, he stuck it again into the fire and after beating it between two stones, sucked out the marrow. This done, he immediately filled the emptied bone with tobacco. The Bushmen eat snakes, reptiles and insects greedily. Roots, too, form a large portion of

their diet.

The Hottentots are exceedingly fond of meat, even if it is tainted. For quality they care but little, nor does its tenderness matter much. Under its effect they become semi-intoxicated, and will gorge themselves to the utmost limit of endurance, sleeping like a boa-constrictor that has swallowed a goat, and then awaking only to gorge themselves afresh, and fall asleep again.

There is a singular variation of taste as regards the diet in use among the large number of South African tribes. Some of them, as we have seen, are depraved in this respect, eating anything and everything, fresh or tainted. Others, like the Ovambos, are quite refined in this matter. They are successful cultivators and raise vegetables of many kinds. The ordinary Kaffir corn and a kind of millet are the two most plentiful grains. Beans, peas, etc., are also in great favor, and they also cultivate the melon, pumpkins, calabashes and other kinds of fruit.

Abyssinia.

The most valued kind of bread eaten by the natives of Abyssinia is called "teff." It is very sour, soft and spongy. The grain is ground between stones and made into a thin paste, which remains in a jar for a day and night in order to become sour, and is then baked in a "magogo" or oven. They eat meat cooked or uncooked. But the great treat for an Abyssinian epicure is the "broundo," a raw meat. They will not, however, eat any animal which has incisor teeth in the upper jaw, and they reject even the camel, because it has not a cloven hoof. The still warm flesh of the animal to be devoured is sliced into strips by the men and handed by them to the women who sit by their side. The women cut it up into small squares, lay it on the bread, season it with a kind of paste made from capsicum pods, roll it up into balls, which they push into the mouths of their companions, who eat all they want, and then prepare similar balls which they

push into the mouths of the women. An Abyssinian's digestion is marvelous. He will go to any number of feasts in a day, and bring a fine fresh appetite to each, consuming at every meal a quantity of food sufficient for seven or eight hungry Americans. A traveler once gave a party to fourteen natives. They had already been to several feasts, on the same day, and the host thought they certainly could not devour very much food. But he killed a cow and two sheep and provided many gallons of mead and an infinite quantity of "teff." To his astonishment the whole of the supply vanished, scarcely a scrap being left.

In the province of Shoa a great animal feast is given by the ruler at Easter. The banqueting room is a large chamber, with a curtained alcove on one side, in which the prince sits to view the feast. Fresh grass is strewn on the floor and round the room are set the tables-low circular pieces of wicker-work. Behind the tables, and ranged about along the wall are the bodyguards of the prince, armed with shields and a sword much like the old Roman weapon. Troops of servants are in waiting, and before the banquet they bring in the bread in piles and place it on the tables. Sometimes as many as thirty loaves are placed before each guest, the finest bread at the top and the coarsest below. The object of this arrangement is to suit the different ranks of the party. Those of the highest rank come first, and eat the finest, using the second-class bread as table napkins. When they have finished, the guests of the next rank come in, eat the second-class bread, and wipe their fingers on the third-class bread, and so on until all the food has been consumed. While musicians and dancers enliven the scene, the guests are eating as fast as they can, the servants are carrying meat from one guest to another, and making up neat little sausages of meat, bread and pepper, which they put adroitly into the mouths of the guests. The politer guests, having taken the rough edge off their own appetites by means of two or three pounds of meat, a pile of bread and a gallon or two of mead, also go to work preparing meat balls and put them into their neighbors' mouths. After this course, consisting largely of cooked mutton, has been finished, the servants bring in raw meat, still warm with life and cut from a cow that has been slaughtered at the door while the mutton and bread were being eaten.

Arabia.

The Bedouins of the Arabian deserts are not very highly skilled in the arts of cooking. Their greatest luxury is a feast of boiled mutton. The meat is put into a pot containing some water; but, as a rule, when it is about two-thirds cooked, the hungry Bedouins can wait no longer, but plunge their hands into the bowl to which the meat has been transferred from the cooking pot, tear it to pieces with their hands, and in a few minutes nothing is left but the cleanly picked bones. The cooking of their bread is equally simple, so that it can be readily cooked on their frequent journeys, and, indeed, a camel rider can even bake his bread while going at full speed on the dromedary. The date, which when fresh contains a large amount of nourishment, is the chief food resource of the Bedouin, and on it alone he can exist for a long time. R. I. GEARE. National Museum, Washington, D. C.

MONTHLY CLINIC

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very

Origin of Pneumococcus and Other Bacteria.

EDITOR MEDICAL WORLD:-Being young in the science of microscopy, I find a great many things in pathologic specimens, and some that, like the amateur astronomer, make me wish for somebody to tell me what they are after I have found them.

The thing that has bothered me most for some time is: How can a virulent germ like the pneumococcus inhabit the lungs for a long time (as in so-called chronic bronchitis) without producing the characteristic manifestations of pneumonia, general and local?

I have a case, also, of otitis media in a woman, 40 years old, which has discharged since childhood and this discharge is loaded with what my tests prove to be the bacillus of influenza, no streptos nor staphylos; yet there is no history of grip or influenza in either herself or her household in many years. How? Why? This same ear, by the way, is occasionally the seat of vicarious menstruation. T. E. CALLAN.

Gaylesville, Ala.

[We will first refer you to our editorial in this issue entitled "The Origin of Bacterial Infections." After you have read that carefully one or more times then consider the following as an addendum thereto : Dr. Maher offers the following explanation of the origin of the pneumococcus, in the article quoted from in our editorial:

Let us go back to the ever-present cocci of the skin and air passages: if they are derived from the harmless spore-bearing bacilli of the air and leaves, is it not easy to understand why they are harmless on the intact skin, but become harmful when they have lived for a few generations, or seventy-two hours, in the broken cells and effused blood of an injured arm or leg? And does not this conception afford a new and inviting lead into the mysterious problem of pneumonia-traumatic pneumonia, epidemic pneumonia, and tuberculous pneumonia? It is usually a coccus that is found frequently in the month vegetating harmlessly, but that from the beginning to the end of cold weather is our most dangerous foe.

In warm weather the atmosphere conditions are so favorable that the spore-bearing bacillus grows readily in nature in its bacillary form, and when taken into the air passages it is easily and quickly broken into its coccal granules. These resulting cocci inherit from their mother rod only a very

thin shell which is easily dissolved by the cells and fluids of the air passages. They are incapable of penetrating even the weakest epithelium. In summer men have injuries to the chest; they get chilled in the water of the river or ocean, but unless they are very old or have tuberculosis, they seldom have pneumonia.

Now, what happens in winter-in the pneumonia months? The spore-bearing bacilli of the street dust and even of the bare trees have long before lost their vegetative bacillary form and have all turned to spores, and the capsules of these spores have become thicker and more resistant and often acid-fast. When the snow is on them, no matter how cold the weather is, there is little pneumonia in the community; but if the streets and the fields are bare, and the winds high-in other words, if it is a green Christmas-the hardy spores of bacillus subtilis or some of its kindred spore-bearers are inhaled with every breath by young and old. The cells and secretions of the air passages break up the spores as they did the rods in the summer, but the resulting cocci inherit now a thick capsule like the shell of the tubercle bacillus, and this is not easily dissolved, even by the most vigorous epithelium. And in the weak and the aged, and even in the young and strong who have by exposure, or by overeating, or by overdrinking, or excesses of any kind, caused a little congestion of the blood vessels of the air passages, these capsuled cocci gain access to the circulation and in a few hours there is another case of pneumonia.

In tuberculous pneumonia the development of the acute process may be explained in the same way except that the pneumococcus could come from the disintegrating tubercle bacillus. A few winters ago I had a very severe epidemic of pneumonia in the Home for the Aged in New Haven. Every day for a couple of weeks, on the women's side of the institution, one or two new cases of pneumonia broke out. And the cases were very severe. And all this while there were no cases of pneumonia on the men's side of the institution. At about the tenth day I discovered that one fussy old lady, who coughed but said she was not sick, had a chronic tuberculous process of the lungs. It was against the rule of the institution to harbor tuberculous patients. She was isolated and, after a few days, sent home. Not another case of pneumonia occurred. We found then that all the first cases were the women who were her chums or who sat with her at table, or who slept beside her in the dormitory. Her sputum injected into a rabbit killed it promptly and filled its blood with pneumococci.

This being true of the pneumococcus, it also is true of the influenza bacillus and other bacteria as well.-ED.]

Malarial Hemoglobinuria.

EDITOR MEDICAL WORLD:-I want you to tell me the best treatment for malarial hemoglobinuria. We have it down here, in Southwest Georgia, and it is a disease I get very little results with, and I have read all the books I could find about it. They say very little about it. See if some one of "the family" can suggest anything that will do any good or will help. We have a young man now in our community, just 26 years of age. He was taken last week, and he has developed anemia and he is going to die within the next 48 hours.

We have done everything we can, and fought a hard battle, but we are going to lose and lose a-fighting for his life.

GEO. W. BAGLEY, JR., PHG., M.D. DeSoto, Ga.

[The first question is always, in such a case, shall or shall not quinin be a feature of the treat