Child hygiene among the American Indians : a chapter in early American pediatrics / Samuel X. Radbill.

  • Samuel X. Radbill
Date:
[1945]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Child hygiene among the American Indians : a chapter in early American pediatrics / Samuel X. Radbill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not in primitive ideology from practices of like import among the Greeks, let us say, with their votive offerings or the African savages with their gifts to the spirits that enliven the environ¬ ment about them. If there was no specialization of pediatric practice among the Indians, nevertheless there were many facts to be gleaned from the literature which should be of particular interest to those concerned with child welfare. Concerning the primordial state of the inhabitants of the Western hemisphere it is of course difficult to determine much more than is conjectural. Most of our knowledge about these prehistoric peoples derives from a study of skeletal remains, and students of paleopathology are unhappily lacking in unanimity concerning the interpretation of osseous changes found in pre- Columbian remains. However, such study is not entirely devoid of value, even if at times productive of conflicting opinion. In examining hundreds of skulls of ancient pre- Columbian Peruvians at the National Museum at Lima, Dr. William T. Corlett of Cleveland, Ohio, was amazed at the unusual amount of skull deformation brought about by binding the head in infancy, while the bones were still soft and pliable, until the desired shape was produced (Corlett, 1935). In a cemetery of four hundred mummies spoken of as the “great Necropolis” in the slope of the Cerro Colorado all the skulls were found to have been artificially elongated. This custom of shaping the, heads of Indians is, and probably was, done for cosmetic purposes and was widely practiced throughout the world.1 The belief of the American Indian in the ability to mold and shape the growing body to the desired form is curiousty illustrated in the tale of Francisco Chicorana. He H can still remember my mother advising her friends with young infants to mold their skulls gently so that they should have “nice, round heads.” The so-called Thessalic method of binding was condemned by Soranus as cruel and burdensome. This method, similar to that of the American Indians, must have been a common primitive one. Thracians and Macedonians also bound the infants to a board. Hippocrates in Chap. XXI of Airs, Waters and Places, describes artificial elongation and molding of the heads of infants and says that in the land of the Macrocephalics, those persons endowed with long heads are classed as belonging to the noblest race. Certain tribes of Solomon Islanders like¬ wise are proud of their artificially produced, gourd shaped heads.
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