Jokkmokk [2]

Arrived at Hyttan [Kvikkjokk].

A rock like alum or sandstone or Lappmark chalk.

The Lapps staunch blood by binding a white woollen thread around the finger at its longest joint, continuing this to the top of the little finger of the left hand, and then tying 3 knots in the piece of string.

Ember bread. Is baked from small fresh fish that have been pounded and mixed with a little flour before being baked or roasted on a spit by the fire. They use this in hard times.

The Lapps eat twice a day, winter and summer.

There are no flies, snakes or lice in the mountains.

The Lapp lets lice freeze to death in the winter and, since he does not have a brush, knocks them off with a switch after they have turned red. They turn red when they are frozen. In summer he kills them with his nails after putting his clothes in the sun so that the lice crawl out of them.

Smallpox, when it moves in from settled districts, is caught even by people over 70 or 80 years old, and they die like the plague or flee to the mountains and perish in large numbers. The same with measles, which makes them unable to withstand the cold and they consequently perish miserably. Their necks often swell up.

Eye disease is present everywhere here, especially in spring when they come to the mountains where the snow-glare affects their eyes. Especially in the spring. NB. old people often go blind.

Missed menstruation is rare, nor is the flow very copious – not as copious as among us. They are ignorant of towels.

Hysterics. One girl of 24 only has the complaint once a year, another of 30 monthly during the summer.

Epilepsy; headaches (many of them have scars on their foreheads from this); old people with weak hearing.6 Sleep good and normal; they sleep and wake as they desire. They have swellings in the throat. Swollen uvulae, which are therefore cut off in many cases – see Bartholin.

Children with swollen tonsils have them pricked until blood is drawn since it is said that once the heart-blood has left the tonsils the problem will soon disappear. If left untreated, the trouble will go over into the head and the head will fester.

They rarely have a cough even though they are forever drinking snow and ice water. When they do get a cough, it is often from very fatty dripping and rarely from cold.

Consumption occasionally; stitch now and again, commonly in autumn, most frequently in spring. Backache, most prevalent in summer, is often burned with “moxa”. Nosebleeds among women with swollen feet – that is, suppressed menstruation; this is most common among those who work for settlers and the like.

I heard of no cases of jaundice. Breathlessness in the old, some of them hoarse now and again in spring and winter. Some cases of hysteria.