Venereal Disease and the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Thomas Lowry

Abstract

of French and Indian ancestry (p. 10-11). She quotes with approval a remark that "the stan dard label for the Lewis and Clark expedition might withmore fairnessbe expanded to 'Lewis and Clark and Verendrye and Drouillard and Charbonneau'" (p. 24ns). This is a freshand worthwhile approach to earlywestern history,and Colby seems tohave gathered everythingwritten on her particular subject. She traces theCharbonneaus through generations inQuebec. She quotes dozens of passages about Sacagawea, Toussaint Char bonneau, and their son. She tries to challenge prejudices by looking at thesefigures"in terms of theirown cultures and the realities of their own times" (p. 11). She thus creates themost extensive, amply illustratedbiography anyone is likelytowrite. Yet, a close readerwill find thisbook frus tratingwhen it relies on secondary sources ratherthanprimarydocuments.Many passages from Lewis and Clark, for example, are taken from the Elliott Coues edition? a rewritten and much-edited narrative of the expedition ? instead of the painstaking Gary Moulton edition of the Journals or theDonald Jackson edition of lettersand documents. Colby's foot notesmay point to mere opinions from Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail (pp. 42, 76, 113, 117,119,137,139), toworks thatquote or report old tales and reminiscences, or to an excellent source that contains nothing whatever about thematter at hand (Jackson at p. 40/745).The genealogies seem to relyon aDictionnaire des Manages Charbonneau, which may ormay not be a scrupulous familyhistory; itsauthority is nowhere described or discussed. Colby also makes sweeping generalizations that amount to mind-reading or stereotyping. Sacagawea, she states, "was a confident, ac complished young woman, ready for whatever fate sentherway," and she continually inspired respect, admiration, loyalty,and devotion (p. 37,47). Jean-Baptiste lived ina palace and then survived on roughwestern trails.Therefore, he had the temperament ofboth a bon vivant and a wilderness ascetic. "Fine cuisine... must have appealed to thedebonair Jean-Baptiste, whose educated palate, pampered in the courts of Europe for sixyears, suffered mightily at times on the range"; yet, at the same time he was perpetually "seduced by thecharm and freedom of an unfettered lifeon the plains and in the mountains," and "the Indian in him rejected avarice, and hiswhole lifeillustratedthathewas contentwith the simple lifeof a lone bachelor" (p. 141,117,163). ALBERTFURTWANGLER Salem, Oregon VENEREAL DISEASEAND THE LEWIS AND CLARKEXPEDITION byThomas Lowry University ofNebraska Press, Lincoln, 2004. Photographs, maps, tables, index. 117pages. $21.95 cloth.. DR. THOMAS LOWRY, a retired psychiatrist fromthe University ofCalifornia, San Francisco, haswritten a book that,although slim, ispacked with information and delightful to read. The various chapters deal with the current state of knowledge of venereal disease; the origin of syphilis, which is stillamatter for livelydiscus sion;what Lewis and Clark were likelytoknow about venereal disease and how theyprepared for itby buying the appropriate medicines; Indian medicine; accounts from the journals; and a final chapter on possible indications that themen of the Corps suffered from the late manifestations of syphilis after the expedition ended. In the early 1800s, the distinction between syphilis and gonorrhea was vague, but the treatment for both was the same ? mercury. Lewis notes in many places inhis journals that men were being treated for"thevenereals," but onlymentions threemen by name. He writes about the incidence of infectionamong Indian women, but does not suggestthatanyofhis own men came on the expedition already infected. Considering the high incidence of venereal Reviews 151 disease in all armies at that time, itdoes not seem unreasonable to think that some of the men were already infected. Lowry discusses thepossible originsof syphi lis insome detail, although he does notmention thesuggestivefindingfromthenorth ofEngland that syphilis inother parts of Europe preceded its appearance in Italy in 1494-1495by several hundred years. (SeeClaude Qu?tel, trans.Judith Bradock and Brian Pine, TheHistory ofSyphi lis, JohnsHopkins University Press, 1992 and http:///www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_syphi lis/intex.htmlfor more on thisdebate.) One of the most intriguingdiscussions con cerns the possibility that Lewis was suffering from tertiarysyphiliswhen he died. Reimert Ravenholt, writing in 1994,even suggested that he could pinpoint the night on which Lewis acquired the disease ? August 13, 1805.This would imply that he developed tertiarycere bral syphilis in fouryears. This is theoretically possible, but unlikely, as thefinal...