to admit, that the atmosphere of Vera Cruz contains putrid emanations, which if reathed for the shortest space of time, introduce disorder into all the vital functions?

The most part of the Europeans newly landed, feel during their stay at Vera Cruz, the first symptoms of the vomito, which is announced by a pain in the lumbar region, by the yellow colouring of the conjunctive, and by signs of congestion towards the head. In several individuals it only declares itself when they arrive at Xalapa, or on the mountains of la Pileta, in the region of pines and oaks, at sixteen or eighteen hundred metres above the level of the ocean*. Those who have long resided at Xalapa, deem themselves able to foretel from the features of the travellers who ascend from the coast, to the table land of the interior, whether, without their being sensible of it themselves, they contain within them the germ of the disease. Dejection and fear increase the predisposition of the organs to receive the impression of the miasmata; and these same causes render the commencement of the yellow fever, more violent when the tient is imprudently informed of the danger of his situation.

* 5248 and 5904 feet. Trans.

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+ I can cite on this subject an instance the more cu rious, as it paints at the same time the phlegm, and the

We have already seen that persons born at Vera Cruz, are not exposed to contract the vomito in their native country, and that in this respect they possess a great advantage over the inhabitants of the United States, who suffer from the insalubrity of their own climate. Another advantage of the torrid zone is, that the Europeans, and in general all individuals born in temperate climates, are never twice attacked with the yellow fever. Some very rare examples have been observed in the West India Islands

coldness of the natives of the coppery race. A person with whom I was on terms of intimate friendship during my stay at Mexico, had passed only a very short time at Vera Cruz, on my first voyage from Europe to America. He arrived at Xalapa without feeling any sensation indicative of the dangerous state in which he was immediately to be. "You will have the vomito this evening," said an Indian barber gravely to him while he lathered his face, "the soap dries as fast as I put it on, that is a never “failing sign, and for twenty years that I have been in "the practice of shaving the chapetons, who pass through "this town in their way to Mexico, out of every five "three has died." This sentence of death made a strong impression on the spirits of the traveller. It was in vain to represent to the Indian that his calculation was exaggerated, and that a great heat of the skin does not prove this infection; the barber persisted in his prognostic; and in reality the disease declared itself a few hours afterwards, and the traveller already on his way for Perote, was obliged to be transported to Xalapa, where he very nearly fell a victim to the violence of the vomito.

of a second attack, and these examples are very common in the United States; but at Vera Cruz, a person who has been once attacked with the disease, is in no dread of subsequent epidemics. The women who land on the coast of Mexico, or who descend from the central table land, run less risk than the men. This prerogative of the sex is even manifest under the temperate zone. In 1800, there died at Cadiz, 1577 women, for 5810 men, and at Seville, 3672 women, for 11,013 men. It was long believed that individuals attacked with the gout, intermittent fevers, or syphilitic diseases, did not contract the vomito; but this opinion is contrary to a great number of facts observed at Vera Cruz. They experience there what has been observed in the greatest part of epidemics*, that so long as the yellow fever rages violently, the other intercurrents (intercurrentes) are sensibly more rare.

:

The examples of individuals dying between thirty and forty hours after the first attack of the vomito, are rarer under the torrid zone, than in temperate regions. In Spain, individuals were seen to pass from a state of health to death, in six or seven hourst. In this case

* Schnurrer, Materialien zu einer allgemeinen Naturlehre der Epidemien und Contagien, 1810, p. 40; a work which contains valuable materials for pathological zoonomy. + Berthe, p. 79.

the disease shows itself in all its simplicity, appearing only to act on the nervous system. To the excitation of this system, a total prostration of the forces succeeds: and the principle of life is extinguished with fearful rapidity. The bilious complications cannot in this case show themselves, and the patient experiences as he dies strong hemorrhages; but his skin does not assume a yellow colour*, nor are those matters vomited which go by the name of black bile. At Vera Cruz the yellow fever generally lasts beyond six or seven days; and this is sufficient for the irritation of the nervous system, to lose the true character of the adynamical fever.

As the vomito only attacks in the equinoctial region, individuals born in cold countries, and never the natives, the mortality of Vera Cruz is not so great as might be supposed, when we consider the heat of the climate, and the extreme irritability of organs which are consequent on it. The great epidemics have only carried off within the town, nearly fifteen hundred individuals per annum. I possess tables which indicate the state of the hospitals during the last fifteen years; but as these tables do

* Mr. Rush observed that at Philadelphia during the epidemic of 1793, the persons who enjoyed the best health, and even the negroes, had the conjunctive of a yellow die, and the pulse extraordinarily accelerated.

not expressly designate the patients who died of the vomito, they give us little or no information respecting the progress of art in diminishing the number of the victims.

In the hospital confided to the care of the monks of San Juan de Dios, the mortality is excessive. Between 1786 and 1802, there entered 27,922 patients, of whom 5557, or more than a fifth died. This number of deaths must be considered the greater, as the vomito did not prevail between 1786 and 1794, and as among the patients who entered the hospital, more than two thirds were afflicted with intermittent fevers, or other diseases which are not epidemical. At the hospital of Our Lady of Loretto, the mortality was much less. Between 1793 and 1802, there entered 2820 individuals, of whom 389, or a seventh died. The best managed hospital of Vera Cruz is that of Saint Sebastian, kept up at the expence of the merchants (Hospital del Consulado), and under the direction of a physician*, who from his knowledge, disinterestedness, and great activity, has very justly acquired a great reputation. The following is a state of that small establishment in 1803.

* Don Florencio Perez y Comotą.