52 Historical 



the Puna, that is, the sickness which usually occurs on high moun- 

 tains and which consists of difficulties in breathing, nausea, prostration, 

 vertigo, and other symptoms. Only at first, when I entered the gorges 

 near Estanzuela, I felt a heaviness in my head, as if I were going to 

 have vertigo; but I had no other symptoms. . . . Probably I have been 

 protected by the weakness of my constitution; for strong and portly 

 people are more easily attacked by the Puna than those who are 

 thin, spare, or weak. 



The symptoms of the same disease appear in animals, and particu- 

 larly in horses, on the lofty paths of the mountains; they are charac- 

 terized particularly by trembling of the limbs and violent hemorrhages, 

 which, however, do not become fatal. Many horses, and especially 

 the best, fall down on the ground on journeys in the mountains. The 

 natives call this disease the Trembladera; they claim that in the moun- 

 tains there are places where it is particularly likely to attack passing 

 animals; they pointed out one in the Aconquija Sierra, the position 

 of which, however, I could not determine. 



The Englishman Markham, 49 who in 1860 made a journey to 

 Peru for the purpose of studying cinchona trees and finding a 

 way of introducing them into the Indies, gives information of the 

 same sort: 



On the heights of the Cordillera, men and animals are subject to a 

 very painful disease, caused by the rarefaction of the air, and which 

 the Peruvians call sorochi. I had been ill at Arequipa, so that I was 

 probably predisposed to the attack of the sorochi, which affected me 

 violently. Before reaching Apo (May, 1860), an excruciating headache, 

 accompanied by acute suffering and pains in the lower part of the neck, 

 made me very ill, and these symptoms grew worse during the night 

 passed in the post house of Apo, so that at three o'clock in the morning, 

 when we set out again, I was unable to mount my mule without as- 

 sistance. (P. 89.) 



In the official description of the Argentine Confederation, Dr. 

 Martin de Moussy/" who had dwelt for ten years in the basin of 

 the Plata, gives a detailed description of the American form of 

 mountain sickness: 



The name of puna is given to this painful sensation, this distress in 

 breathing which some persons experience when they are at great 

 heights. This sensation is certainly due to the rarefaction of the air, 

 for, at 4200 meters, the general altitude of the plateau, the barometric 

 column falls on the average to 0.46 meters . . . and it is impossible that 

 such an enormous difference in the atmospheric pressure should not 

 produce a profound impression upon the animal constitution. Further- 

 more, this impression varies in different persons; some have difficulty 

 in breathing, others suffer from cephalagia, a sort of headache, and a 

 complete loss of appetite. Many feel no ill effects; but when they try 

 to walk, almost everyone feels unusual fatigue. 



