EARTHWORKS ON HARPETH RIVERS. 95 



Mexico,"^ that, in the epidemic of 1545, eighty thousand perished; and, in that of 

 1575, upwards of two millions died in the dioceses of Mexico, Angelopoli, Michoacan, 

 and Guaxaca alone. Clavigero aiiirms that this information was derived from the 

 bills of mortality presented by every curate to the viceroy. 



Dr. Servando,^ an Ecclesiastic, gives, in a letter dated London, January 10th, 

 1813, the following facts with reference to the history of smallpox in the American 

 continent : — 



" The smallpox, as well as the measles, was unknown in New Spain before the 

 conquest. They were brought there, says Torquemada, by a negro from I'amsilo; 

 and they occasioned such destruction, that he does not hesitate to affirm that 

 the greatest part of the Indians died, among whom was the Emperor Cuitlahuac, 

 who succeeded Montezuma. It is stated, that, according to the reports which 

 Cortez ordered to be made to him, there died in the Empire of Mexico alone, three 

 millions and a half. It was not long before fresh variolous infection was brought 

 over, and, according to Torquemada, eight hundred thousand Indians perished. 

 Europe has continued to communicate this scourge at intervals of thirty, twenty, 

 or a less number of years ; and the infection, extending itself from Vera Cruz to the 

 most remote parts, has, like a destructive plague, spread terror, deatli, and desola- 

 tion over that continent. The longer it is retarded the more fatal it becomes, 

 because the danger increases with the age of the sufferers. Thirty-three years ago, 

 more that ten thousand persons were carried off in the towns of Mexico and Puebla 

 alone by this contagion, which was the last but one that has visited that kingdom, 

 and was brought to tliem after an interval of nineteen years. It was from this 

 last attack, that I was a sufferer in my native country, Monterey, the capital of the 

 new kingdom of Leon ; and there was not a family that did not put on mourning. 

 Some of these families disappeared altogether, because they were all adult persons 

 and had been seized by the epidemic in the city. Those who lived in the country 

 were preserved from its influence by banking the dunghills of the large and small 

 cattle around their dwellings 



Torquemada says, speaking of the first introduction of the infection, that the 

 reason why it killed so many was, that the Indians were ignorant of the nature of 

 the disease, and bathed and scratched themselves. 



In the new kingdom of Leon there were bands of wandering natives so warlike, 

 that the Spaniards could not, with arms in their hands, resist their attacks upon 

 their towns ; the smallpox, however, extirpated almost all of them ; and fifty years 

 ago, heaps of bones, like so many trophies of the disease, were to be seen under 

 the old tufted oaks in the fields. At the present time when a savage sees one of 

 his companions attacked with the infection, he leaves him, his horse, and his 

 possessions, and flees to a great distance in the woods. It has never happened 

 that the Spaniards have secured themselves against infection by stopping their 

 communications with the Indians." 



Smallpox did not, in these early visitations, confine its ravages to Mexico, but 



' Vol. iii, p. 393. 



' Observations on the Different Kinds of Smallpox, by Alexander Monro, Edinburgh, 1818, p. 1. 



