CORRESPONDENT HOPKINS ‘CAME A CROPPER’ ON USING AN ‘INDIAN TEA PRESCRIPTION’

I was selling goods and doing some photographic work in Sullivan County, in the spring of 1915.

At the time my health was declining and I was fast losing weight. Therefore, after talking to three Bristol Doctors, (Dr. Fleenor, Dr. Peters and Dr. Will Rodgers) and being advised by all of them to go way back in some mountain country and just take a general rest - they said it would help more than any treatment they could give me. I set out for Watagua County, N. C.

I got my photo supplies at Bunting's Drug Store, packed up two old suit cases and was soon on my way to the mountain parts of that country. Traveling then was not like it is today. There were plenty of mud roads and very few automobiles.

I hired a man to take me to Elizabethton, in a buggy and there I took the passenger on the narrow gauge to Elk Park. I layed over there until 7 o'clock in the evening and got on the stage coach drawn by horses, and somewhere near midnight I landed at Villas, North Carolina.

The postmaster was up and waiting to take care of the mail. He told me there was no hotel or lodging house there, but seeing my health was bad, he volunteered to give me a bed and breakfast and I was very thankful.

I finally reached my destination, and got a regular place to stay at Mr. Ad Cook's near the Watauga River. The family and all the neighbors were so good and kind to me, I began to feel lots better in just a few days, and soon got acquainted with many of the good people in the neighborhood. I never was treated better by any people before or since.

They gave me all the picture taking work I could do, even with volunteer help, I never did fill all the calls.

The neighbors told me it was sure a healthful place but they sometimes had a little trouble with an ailment called milk poison, said to be caused by vapor arising from the earth off the copper mineral and settling on the grass that cows ate. The poison was said to enter the milk without hurting the cows, but bringing sickness on the people who used the milk.

They also said it was nothing to fear as a drink or so of old apple brandy would cure it, and besides that, there was an Indian woman that was a doctor, and if she could reach her patients early enough, she had a dead shot cure for the trouble.

It was on the third day of July; I was hunting boomers, as I always went once a week. I liked to eat boomers, but on this trip I took some trouble with a sore mouth and I sorter got to thinking maybe I had milk poison.

However, in the boomer hunting grounds, I ran across the Indian woman doctor. She was digging roots and barks and herbs. It was the first time I had ever seen her and when I asked her if she was a doctor she said "yes" and did not seem to fear white men.

I did have a little fear of an Indian woman way back that far in the lone woods. However, I asked her to lock at my mouth and tell me if I had milk poison. After a close examination, she shook her head and said she had some medicine that would cure it over night with just one treatment.

I bought a small roll of yellow looking roots, and sure enough it cured me with the first application. She then told me of another medicine that would prevent my poisoning. It was a little green looking weed she called winter-green.

She said to make and a pint of tea from the weed at night before going to bed. The bunch of root cost me twenty-five cents.

I killed three boomers and then I gathered up my medicine and headed back to my good old boarding place, and showed the two cook girls my medicine. I asked them if they would make one pint of tea to prevent milk poison.

The oldest one, Lizann, told the youngest sister, Alice, to make the tea and finish supper while she did the milking.

The younger girl made a mistake in making the tea and made a pint of laxative to be taken on a dosage of one tablespoon each four hours. I thought I was taking the Indian doctor’s drink, when Alice went and got it for me, so I drank the whole pint down.

In a few minutes I began to feel very queer and asked the family if they had ever taken any Indian medicine like that. At that time, the oldest girl thought maybe her sister had made the wrong tea, and sure enough, she had.

So I asked them all to excuse me. I went to my room but got no sleep that night nor for two days afterward. I celebrated that fourth of July in a way that was not pleasant.

But I could hear the girls laughing hour in and hour out. That is one Fourth of July I shall never forget, although I stayed on and made pictures until the 29th day of September.

Then I headed back for home, and when I left there on the stage back to Elk Park, I weighed myself and found I had gained 40 pounds. But I left the girls still laughing and I feel sure if the girls are still living, they laugh when they think of my Indian tea.