a8o A VOYAGE TO Book V. 



very common in that climate, and consequently at the 

 first attack all means should be used to prevent its 

 progrese. Persons who labour under a flux are most 

 liable to that malady ; but the inhabitants of this 

 country being firmly persuaded that there can be no 

 distemper that is not accompanied with the vicho, the 

 cure is never delayed. The operation must be at- 

 tended with no small pain, as a pessary, composed of 

 gun-powder, guinea-pepper, and a lemon peeled, is 

 insinuated into the anus, and changed two or three 

 times a day, till the patient is judged to be out of 

 danger. 



The venereal disease is here so common, that few 

 persons are free from it, though its efiects are much 

 more violent in some than in others; and many are 

 afflicted with it, without any of its external symptoms. 

 Even little children, incapable by their age of having 

 contracted it actively, have been known to be attacked 

 in the same manner by it as persons who have ac- 

 quired it by their debauchery. Accordingly there is 

 no reason for caution in concealing this distemper, its 

 commonness effacing the disgrace that in other coun- 

 tries attends it. The principal cause of its prevalence 

 is, negligence in the cure. For the climate favours 

 the operations of the medicines, and the natural tem- 

 perature of the air checks the malignity of the virus 

 more than in other countries. And hence few are 

 salivated for it, or will undergo the trouble of a radi- 

 cal cure. This disease must naturally be thought in 

 some measure to shorten their lives ; though it is not 

 uncommon to see persons live seventy years or more, 

 without ever having been entirely free from that dis- 

 temper, either hereditary, or contracted in their early 

 youth. 



During the continuance of the north and north-east 

 winds, which are the coldest from passing over the 

 fi*osty deserts, the inhabitants are afflicted with very 

 painful catarrhs, called pechugueras. The air is then 



some- 



