94 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



indigenous to the West Indies, and to that part of the continent of America which 

 is situated between the tropics. 



The testimony of Humboldt is similar to that of Dr. Hillary, who held that the 

 vomiio has been endemical at Vera Cruz, Carthagena, and Havana, from the very 

 foundation of these cities by the adventurers from Europe ; and that this disease 

 has appeared in the two continents and in the West Indies, whenever bodies of 

 men born under a colder zone have exposed themselves in the low regions of the 

 torrid zone. 



The preceding facts show the fallacy of attempting to decide with certainty the 

 date of the origin of yellow fever, from the statements of the writers of any one 

 locality; and they also show the impropriety of confounding the period at which a 

 disease has been first described on account of its having committed ravages in some 

 particular locality and time, with the period of its first appearance. 



Smallpox has caused a greater destruction and more rapid depopulation of the 

 aborigines of insular and continental America, than all other causes combined. 



In North America, the wholesale butcheries and cruel slavery of the Spaniards, 

 the deadly rifle and cannon, and the still more deadly vices of the French and 

 English, would have accomplished comparatively slow and uncertain results, but for 

 the epidemic of smallpox, which, since its introduction in 1520 by a negro in the 

 expedition of Narvaez, has committed its ravages periodically, and swept away 

 whole tribes and nations. 



After the discovery of Hispaniola by Columbus in 1492, and of the contiguous 

 continents by other adventurers in succession, a general exchange of diseases, 

 remedies, and natural productions, soon ensued between Europe and the newly 

 discovered countries ; in return for syphilis, a venereal distemper which was said 

 to have been, up to that time, unknown in any part of Europe, the smallpox was 

 communicated to the American Indians, and, at different intervals, committed such 

 ravages amongst the natives (in whom, from their peculiar constitution, habits, and 

 modes of medical treatment, the poison acted with peculiar power) as had well 

 nigh swept them from the continent. 



The spread of the smallpox, on its first introduction into Mexico in 1520, has 

 been compared to the rapid march of fire over the western prairies. It first broke 

 out in Cempoala, thence it spread rapidly over the neighboring country, and, pene- 

 trating through Tlascala, reached the Aztec Capital, where Cuitlahuac, Monte- 

 zuma's successor, fell one of its first victims. Thence it swept down towards the 

 borders of the Pacific, smiting down prince and subject, leaving its path strown 

 with the dead bodies of the natives, who perished in heaps, like cattle stricken with 

 the murrain. One-half of all the Indians attacked are said to have died, and this 

 high rate of mortality is attributable partly to the crowded state of the cities and 

 villages, but chiefly to the fact that the poor natives were ignorant of the best 

 mode of treating the disease, and sought relief in their usual practice in febrile 

 complaints, of bathing in cold water, which greatly aggravated the loathsome pes- 

 tilence. According to Torquemada, there died in the Empire of Mexico alone, in 

 this epidemic, three millions and a half; and Clavigero states, in his " History of 



