Western Prairie Rattle Snake (Crotalus viridis viridis), a photo by flyingdoginc on Flickr.
Feb. 11, 1805 - Fort Mandan, North Dakota -
Sacagawea
gave birth to
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau
in Fort Mandan, as
Lewis recorded: "about five Oclock this evening one of the
wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. it is worthy
of remark that this was the first child which this woman had
boarn, and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious
and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had
frequently administered a small portion of the rattle of the
rattle-snake, which he assured me had never failed to
produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of
the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to
him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken
in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small
quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause
or not I shall not undertake to determine but I was informed
that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she
brought forth perhaps this remedy may by worthy of future
experiments, but I must confess that I want faith as to its
efficacy."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting!