98 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



desolated the great cities of Central America. In 1588 it was carried into Peru, 

 and still later into Paraguay, where it is said to have proved more fatal to tlie 

 natives than in any other part of tlie world, hardly any recovering from the disease ; 

 amongst the adult Indians of Brazil, wlio used to go naked, and to paint their skin, 

 it was generally certain death. 



According to Humboldt,^ the smallpox committed terrible ravages in 1763, and 

 especially in 1779, in which year it carried oft' in the capital of Mexico alone, more 

 than nine thousand persons. Every evening tumbrels passed through the streets 

 to receive the corpses, as at Pliiladelpiiia during the yellow fever. A great part 

 of the Mexican youth were cut down that year. 



The epidemic of 1797 was less destructive, chiefly owing to the zeal with which 

 inoculation was propagated in the environs of jNlexico, and in the bishopric of 

 Michoacan. In the capital of this bishopric, the city of Valladolid, of six 

 thousand eight hundred inhabitants inoculated, only one hundred and seventy, or 

 2g per cent., died; and several of those who perished were inoculated at a time 

 when they were probably already infected in the natural manner. Fifteen in the 

 hundred died, embracing individuals of all ages, who, without being inoculated, 

 were victims of the natural smallpox. There were then inoculated in the king- 

 dom, between 50,000 and 60,000 individuals. 



In the month of January, 1804, the vaccine inoculation was introduced into 

 Mexico, through the activity of Dr. Thomas Murphy, who brought the virus seve- 

 ral times into North America. This introduction found few obstacles ; the cow- 

 pox appeared under the aspect of a very trivial malady ; and the smallpox inocu- 

 lation had already accustomed the Indians to the idea, that it miglit be useful to 

 submit to a temporary evil for the sake of avoiding a greater. Humboldt further 

 observes: "If the vaccine inoculation, or even the ordinary inoculation, had been 

 known in the New World in the sixteenth century, several miUions of Indians 

 would not have perished victims to the smallpox, and particularly to the absurd 

 treatment by which the disease was rendered so fatal. To this disease, the 

 fearful diminution of the number of Indians in California is to be ascribed." 



The sliips of war commissioned to carry the vaccine matter into America and 

 Asia arrived at Vera Cruz shortly after the visit of Humboldt. 



Don Antonio Valmis, physician general of this expedition, visited Porto Rico, 

 Cuba, Mexico, and the Philippine Islands ; and his stay at Mexico, where never- 

 theless the cow-pox was known before his arrival, contributed singularly to facili- 

 tate the propagation of the vaccine disease. In the principal cities of the kingdom, 

 vaccine committees were formed {Juntas Centrales) composed of the most 

 enlightened individuals, who, by vaccinating monthly, preserved the matter from 

 being lost. Valmis discovered the cow-pox, in the udders of Mexican cows, in the 

 environs of Valladolid, and in the village of Alesco near La Puebla. 



The ravages occasioned by the smallpox in the torrid zone, among a race of 

 men whose physical constitution seemed adverse to cutaneous eruptions, placed in 

 a still clearer light the value and importance of Jenner's discovery, which was 



' Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, vol. i, pp. 111-116. 



