416 



of him. If that expression is to be understood literally and Columbus was 

 referring to the hours of night, the mosquitoes which worried him were 

 probably our "pungens", otherwise they must have been our day mosquito, 

 the regular yellow fever mosquito, those two being the only species whose 

 domestic proclivities would have been likely to induce them to board the 

 admiral's carabela while it lay close to the shore of Santo Domingo. The 

 following year (1494), also, there is collateral evidence which induces me 

 to infer that contaminated mosquitoes must have been conveyed from 

 Santo Domingo to the Canary Islands, the homeward trip at that time 

 being made along that route. From historical data which I had set down 

 in my recent paper, 3 ) I had come to the conclusion that the first name 

 given by the Spaniards to the epidemic which caused so many deaths 

 among them, at Santo Domingo in 1494 had been "modorra pestilencial"; 

 a name which I had never met before (as applied to any human disease) 

 and only once again with reference to the severe epidemic, of the same kind, 

 with attacked the Spaniads who went with Pedrarias Davila to Darien in 

 1514,, until a short time after the publication of the aforsaid paper 3) 

 when I accidentally came across the following remarkable passage in 

 Humboldt and Bonpland's Travels: 5 ) "What remained of the Gaunches 

 (in the Canary Islands) perished mostly in 1-194, in consequence of the 

 terrible pestilence callied the modorra, which was attributed to the number 

 of dead bodies left exposed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle 

 of La Laguna". On Feb. 2, 1494, Antonio Torre had sailed from Santo 

 Domingo for Spain, bringing Columbus' full description of his second 

 voyage to that island and also Dr. Chancas' interesting letter telling of the 

 many men who had latterly been taken sick, though he felt very hopeful 

 that their illness was not a dangerous one. It proved otherwise, however, 

 for that was but the forerunner of a terrible epidemic to which I 

 understand that the name of "modorra pestilencial" was given. The 

 obvious inference is, therefore, that some of Antonio Torre's vessels had 

 harbored mosquitoes which had bitten, in Santo Domingo, patients of 

 modorra. The contaminated insects must have been left at the Canary 

 Islands and there developed the epidemic among the Gaunches which is 

 mentioned by Humboldt and Bonpland. 



The following instances may be cited to show the coincidence of a 

 remarkable abundance of mosquitoes and great mortalities among the 

 Spaniards in Hispaniola and on the coasts of the Spanish main, within the 

 first decades of the discovery of America. 



In Hispaniola, after referring to another outbreak of the usual scourge 

 (1502-1503) on that island and to the yellow color which the patients 

 retained for many days, Herrera 6 ) goes on to describe the fauna of Santo 



5) Humboldt and Bonpland's Travels, London, 1814, and Philadelphia, 1814. 

 vol. i, p. 216. 



(5) Chronicles of Herrera, Decade 1, Book 5, Chapter 11. 



