'They decrease in numbers daily': English and Colonial perceptions of Indian *disease in early America

English observers in early America struggled to make sense of Indian losses to epidemic disease. Sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century authors noted the presence of epidemics, but were slow to realize the scale of the demographic catastrophe that confronted Native American peoples. Because Old World populations also suffered from epidemic sickness, the English tended to regard disease as a universal human experience. By the middle of the seventeenth century, however, English observers began to note that various Indian nations were disappearing. Some English observers attributed these falling populations to the will of God, while others sought explanations in the natural world, blaming the American climate or the influence of the stars. The English, however, had long believed that sickness often struck those who neglected to care for their bodies, and some suggested that native peoples were in part responsible for their own ill-health. Native Americans, they wrote, fell sick because they wore improper clothing, ate too little or too much, or exposed their bodies to extremes of heat or cold. Even as Native American populations fell, the English continued to argue that Indians were fundamentally healthy people. They also suggested that Native Americans knew useful remedies, and commented, both favorably and unfavorably, on Indian medical practices. Medical borrowing between colonists and native peoples began in the sixteenth century and continued into the nineteenth. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, university-trained physicians were likely to argue that Indian medicine had little to offer the English or their American descendants.