A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



employed in boring the St. Gotthard tunnel, who, like the West- 

 phalian miners, suffered severely from the hookworm disease. 

 Cleanliness of the hands, particularly before eating, is therefore the 

 surest means of avoiding infection. But it has been discovered that 

 the larvae can bore their way through the pores of the skin, reaching 

 the intestine by way of the blood-stream. Bare feet — so common 

 in the interior of the country — will afford the larvae an opportunity 

 of penetrating the skin. Water should never be drunk unless it has 

 been boiled — especially as typhus prevails in many parts of Brazil. 



There are also certain microscopic worms which, like the malarial 

 parasites, are injected into the blood of human beings by mosquitoes. 

 There they multiply enormously, giving rise to terrible abscesses and 

 monstrous swellings of certain parts of the body. This disease is 

 known as filariasis or elephantiasis. Persons afflicted with filariasis 

 often join the lepers, with their eroded faces, in the railway-stations, 

 thrusting their hands in at the windows of the carriages and begging 

 for alms : a terrible spectacle. 



I must say something of one more South American bloodsucker. 

 Even in the Middle Ages news of its existence reached Europe, and 

 excited people's imaginations to such purpose that they saw in it 

 the embodiment of a phantom of whose terrible deeds they had read 

 in ancient legends. 



Who indeed would not shudder if he was told the following 

 story? A man lies sleeping in bed; suddenly, through the open 

 window, a huge bat enters on soundless wings. It flies along the walls, 

 rising and falling, in ever-narrowing circles; now it settles on the 

 sleeper's breast, fanning him softly with its grey wings, while its 

 teeth bite through his skin. The fanning cools the wound, and the 

 gentle draught lulls the victim into sounder sleep. When the creature 

 has drunk its fill it rises into the air, flies out of the window, and 

 disappears into the night. 



In this form the story of the vampire made its way all over the 

 world; and although the statement that the bat fans its victim has 

 not been confirmed, so many travellers have asserted that they have 

 been bitten that one cannot doubt the existence of the bloodsucking 

 bat. I myself saw vampires in Olinda ; they even came into my room, 

 but they could not have bitten me, even had they wished to do 

 so, as I slept under a mosquito-net. On the other hand, they did 

 draw blood from the backs of the donkeys in the stable ; the wounds 



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