They had certainly attained to the knowledge that evacuation by bleeding and purging was a beneficial thing; and they bled from the arms and legs, but without understanding the use of leeches nor the position of veins for each disease. They opened the vein which was nearest to the position of the pain. When they felt a bad pain in the head, they bled between the eye-brows, just above the nose. The lancet was a pointed stone fixed into a cleft stick, to which it was fastened, so that it might not fall. They placed the point over a vein, and gave the end of the handle a fillip, and in this way they opened the vein with less pain than by the use of a common lancet. In the application of purgatives they knew nothing of the mode of examining the humours by the urine, nor did they look at it, nor did they know anything of heat, phlegm, or melancholy.

They usually purged when they felt overloaded and were in good health, but not when they were ill. They used (besides other roots which act as purgatives) certain white roots. They are like small rape seeds. They say that of these roots there are male and female, and they take as much of one as of the other, about two ounces of each, pounded. The powder is put in water, or in their drink, and taken, after which they sit in the sun, that its warmth may assist the medicine to operate. After about an hour they feel so giddy that they cannot stand.