while in the enjoyment of the best health, and to whom this prophylactical treatment became a predisposing cause of disease." Is it to be wondered at, that notwithstanding its imperfections and its deceitful simplicity, the method of Brown was productive of good in a country where an adynamical fever was treated as an inflammatory fever; where they dreaded to administer quinquina, opium, and ether; where, in the greatest prostration of strength, they were patiently waiting for a crisis, prescribing all the time nitre, water of marshmallows, and infusions of scoparia dulcis 2 The reading of the works which have appeared on the Brownonian system induced the Spanish physicians to reason on the causes and forms of diseases. Ideas along ago announced by Sydenham, the school of Leyden, by Stoll and by Frank, have found admission into America; and they now attribute to the system of Brown a reform due to the commencement of a spirit of observation, and the general progress of intelligence. Although the vomito is announced by a sthenical diathesis, the bleedings so warmly recommended by Rush, and frequently employed by the Mexican physicians in the great

epidemic of 1762, are looked upon as dangerous at Vera Cruz. Under the tropics the passage from the synoque to the typhus, and from an inflammatory state to a state of languor, is so rapid, that the loss of blood, which is falsely said to be in dissolution, accelerates the general prostration of the strength. In the first period of the vomito, minoratives, baths, ice water, the use of sherbets, and other debilitating remedies are preferred. When, to use the language of the school of Edinburgh, the indirect debility is felt, they employ the most energetic excitants, beginning with strong doses, and gradually diminishing the power of the stimulants. Mr. Comoto was very successful in giving more than a hundred drops of sulphuric ether, and from sixty to seventy drops of tincture of opium per hour. This mode of treatment is a singular contrast to that which is used by the lower people, and which consists in not raising the vital strength by stimulants, but merely in employing lukewarm and mucilaginous drinks, infusions of tamarind, and fomentations on the epigastric region, to calm the irritation of the abdominal system. The experiments which were carried on at Vera Cruz till 1804, as to the use of quinquina in the yellow fever, were not at

From this table it appears that the mean mortality, was a seventh or fourteen per cent. The vomito alone only carried off 16 per cent. ; and we must also observe that more than two thirds of those who perished, were received at the hospital when the disorder had already made an alarming progress. From the tables of commerce published by the Consulado, it appears that there died in general at Vera Cruz in 1803, either of the yellow fever, dif. ferent diseases, or old age, only 959 persons. Supposing the population sixteen or seventeen thousand souls, we find the total mortality six per cent. Now in 950 deaths, at least the half were owing to the vomito; consequently in Vera Cruz the number of deaths, is to that of the inhabitants seasoned to the climate, nearly in the proportion of 1 to 30; which confirms a very generally received opinion in the country”, that the individuals accustomed from their infancy to the great heat of the Mexican coast, and the miasmata contained in the atmosphere, arrive at a happy old age. In 1803, the hospitals of Vera Cruz received 4371 patients, 3671 of whom were cured. The number of deaths was then only twelve per cent., although, as we have seen from the state of the hospital of Saint Sebastian, there were always during the periods when the air was cooled by the north wind some patients under the yellow fever. We have hitherto given detailed information respecting the ravages of the vomito within the walls of Vera Cruz itself, during a year in which the epidemic raged with less violence than ordinary; but a great number of Mexican muleteers, sailors and young people (polizones) who embark in the ports of Spain to push their fortune in Mexico, fall victims to the vomito, in the village of la Antigua, at the plantation. of Muerto, at la Rinconada, at Cerro Gordo, and even at Xalapa when the invasion of the

disease is too quick for them to be transported to the hospitals of Vera Cruz, or when they do not feel the attack till they ascend the Cordillera. The mortality is very great especially when several vessels of war and a great number of merchant ships arrive in summer at the port at the same time. There are years when the number of deaths within the town and in the environs amounts to eighteen hundred or two thousand. The loss is the more afflicting as it falls upon a class of laborious men, strong in constitution, who are nearly all in the prime of life. We may see from the sad experience which the great hospital of the monks of San Juan * has afforded within the last fifteen years, that wherever patients are accumulated in a small space, and not treated with sufficient care, the mortality increases, in great epidemics, to 80 or 35 per cent. ; while, in situations where every care can be bestowed, and where the physician varies his treatment according

* There was an intention in 1804 to suppress this hospital, and to replace it by another under the name of house of beneficence (casa de beneficiencia). Throughout all Spanish America, well informed persons complain of the methods of cure employed by the monks of Sun Juan de Dios. The task undertaken by this congregation is one of the most noble; and I could inention many examples of the disinterestedness and courage of these monks; but at a sick-bed charity will not supply the want of knowledge of art.