206 SANTIAGO. 



Ratia of Mortality in the several years. 

 1840 . . 1 out of each 4. 30 



Average do. 6.06 



A proper estimate of the influence of season on diseases can scarcely be formed from registers 

 imperfectly kept during so short a time ; yet even these hospital reports are not without interest, 

 as showing the predominant diseases and the comparative mortality among the patients. Con- 

 firmatory evidence of the most prevalent diseases is contained in the following remarks, for 

 which I must express obligation to the head of the medical faculty : 



" The most frequent diseases are hypertrophy, hepatitis, and dysentery. The last is at times 

 complicated with a hepatic condition, and at others is caused solely by inflammation of the larger 

 intestines. In the winter season a catarrhal influenza is the most predominant; though bron- 

 chitis, pneumonia, and pleuritis are very frequent. The treatment of the last which is most 

 employed is anti-phlogistic ; and it is more or less active, according to the constitution of the 

 patient and the character of the disease. 



" In summer, ordinary or gastric fevers, dysentery, and hepatitis are the most common. At 

 times fevers assume an ataxical or adynamical, though rarely a typhoidal character, true typhus 

 being rarely seen among us. 



"From time to time there are infirmities which maybe considered endemic or epidemic. 

 Santiago being in a valley, its somewhat stationary atmosphere favors the development of epi- 

 demic disorders. In 1829 scarlet fever was an epidemic that caused great loss of life throughout 

 the republic. It began like the catarrhal influenza known as 'la grippe.' In 1842 the 'grippe' 

 manifested itself in an epidemic manner; and last August (1851) there was another visitation 

 by the same disease. 



' ' But within the last few years the disease which has become most frequent is tuberculous 

 phthisis, attacking every class of society, though its ravages are greatest among the poor. Its 

 most general causes are want, intemperance, and atmospheric changes." 



Afever not unfrequent during summer, and called by the natives "chevalongo,"from all accounts 

 is very decidedly typhoid. The name is of Indian origin, equivalent to "hair of the head," 

 and seems to have been adopted from the fact that those who have the misfortune to be attacked 

 by it invariably lose this adornment of the cranium, if so lucky as to retain life. Nor is any- 

 thing said by the medical gentleman, in his note to me, of blindness and goitre, both diseases 

 prevailing to a notable extent, and more particularly among the poor. In alpine countries, 

 where the latter disease is most prevalent, it is usually attributed to snow-water, though 

 instances are not wanting which afford reason to believe it hereditary ; and, as has been already 

 alluded to, there is a class in Chile who attribute it to the influence of the poplar-trees. If it 

 be the water, it is certain that filtration will not wholly deprive it of influence on constitutions 

 predisposed to the disease ; many cases being known to me where the sufferers have never par- 

 taken of water not thus freed from its turbid particles. Blindness is equally common. It has 

 been mentioned that alms are distributed by certain wealthy families at stated periods, and on 

 these occasions nearly a hundred of the poor blind have been counted returning to their homes 

 just after receiving their charitable pittances. Many are inmates of the alms-house, permitted 

 to come out under guidance of other mendicants, whilst others are comparatively well clad. A 

 medical man, after examination only, could designate the different diseases of the eyes among this 

 multitude, and assign the true cause to each ; though it is not at all improbable that most of them 

 would be traced to the whitewashed walls in a climate which in summer is as dry as an oven, 

 venereal diseases, and uncleanliness. A paper stating that the disease just named is one of the 



