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colics), which being corrupt occasioned dysentery without vomiting, while 

 others again made violent efforts to vomit without being able to discharge 

 anything, and many suffered the fever and pains in the bones without any 

 of the other symptoms. ... In the majority the fever seemed to remit 

 completely on the third day; they would say that they felt no pains 

 whatever, the delirium would cease, the patients conversing in their full 

 senses, but they were unable to eat or drink anything ; they would continue 

 thus one or several days, and while still talking and saying that they were 

 quite well, they expired. A great number did not pass the third day, the 

 majority died on the fifth, and very few reached the seventh, excepting 

 those who survived, and these were mostly advanced in years. The most 

 robust and healthy of the young men were most violently attacked and died 

 soonest. . . . Although a great many women were taken sick the disease 

 was less severe in them than in the men. . . . Some cases occurred in 

 which the patients passed the fever in a sleep, until they recovered, having 

 had no one to administer remedies to them. In houses of large families there 

 was scarcely any one to attend to the sick or to fetch the sacraments for 

 them. This spiritual difficulty was remedied by the charity of the priests, 

 both secular and regular, who went about the streets by day and night 

 carrying with them the Holy Viaticum and the Holy Oils, and visited the 

 houses to administer the same to such as required them. . . . When the 

 laity began to improve, the disease broke out among the priests. Of eight 



members of the Jesuits' College, six died Of our own order 



(Franciscans) twenty died in the city. Almost all the heads of institutions 

 and persons of highest rank, both ecclesiastics and seculars, were carried 

 away by that epidemic. . . . While it lasted in its full intensity among the 

 Spaniards, the Indians were not attacked, excepting those that lived 

 with the former, or who, having visited the city, left it already touched by 

 the disease; most of these died in their villages, but did not communicate 

 their illness to those who attended them. This emboldened the Indians to 

 declare that the scourge was a punishment of God, and that only the people 

 of cities and towns were attacked for their ill-treatment of the In- 

 dians .... A deceitful Indian spread the report that all the Spaniards in 

 Yucatan would die and the Indians would be left by themselves. . . . 



Finally, this man was taken up and the rumor ceased Soon, however, 



did Our Lord undeceive the Indians of their presumption, for a few days 

 after the above occurrence the same illness broke out in many of the Indian 

 villages, causing fearful havoc, as was to be expected, considering their 



want of comforts or medicine The disease continued over the whole 



country during the space of two years . . . Few that lived in this land 

 or visited it in the course of those two years «scaped of thore two 

 this land a visited it in years >escapet being sick, and it rarely 

 Imiijii un] that any our died of a second attack after having recovered 

 from the first. All remained pale as ghosts, without hair, many lost their 



