A DOCTOR'S LIFE IN MEXICO. 



BY CHAS E. HUSK, M. D. 



Tepezala, Aguas Calientes, Mexico. 



Our late unpleasantness with 

 Spain has developed a rapidly grow- 

 ing interest in foreign countries, 

 especially in Latin nations of Span- 

 ish extraction. Many descriptive 

 articles concerning these countries 

 have recently appeared in various 

 publications, only a few, however, 

 refer to Mexico, which, although 

 our nearest neighbor and sister re- 

 public, is comparatively less known 

 than many European countries. 



Having followed my profession 

 during the past two years in Mex- 

 ico, I will try to give your readers 

 an idea of a doctors surroundings 

 and work in a mining camp in this 

 strange old Aztec land. 



The part of the country where I 

 have made my home for the past 

 two years is at a mining camp, 

 twelve miles from the station of 

 Rincon de Rain as on the Mexican 

 Central Railroad, in the state of 

 Aguas Calientes, two hundred miles 

 north of the city of Mexico. Al- 

 though situated south of the Tropic 

 of Cancer, all the unpleasant feat- 

 ures of a tropical climate are elimi- 

 nated, as the camp is in the heart 

 of the Sierra Madre mountains, at 

 an altitude of about 8,000 feet, and 

 while you poor Chicago dwellers are 

 sweltering under an August sun, or 

 shivering in December gales, we 

 are enjoying June days nearly the 

 entire year. The thermometer 



never reaches 95 e F. and never falls 

 below the freezing point. 



Our dry season, from March to 

 June, is the only time of the year 

 in which we can complain, since 

 then the dust and wind are rather 

 unpleasant. But when the rainy 

 season sets in, the pure mountain 

 air; myriads of beautiful wild flow- 

 ers, and perfect nights in a great 

 measure atone for the few comforts 

 of civilization, that we find wanting. 



The Mexican law requires a com- 

 pany to employ a physician when 

 their working force exceeds a hun 

 dred men, and as about 1,600 men 

 are at work here now, and the near- 

 est doctor lives in the city of Aguas 

 Calientes, thirty-five miles away, I 

 am employed to look after the work- 

 men. According to custom, each 

 man pays into a hospital fund 

 monthly an amount equivalent to 

 one full day's wages, from which 

 fund the operatives are given treat- 

 ment and supplied with food and 

 medicine when sick or injured, and 

 a wise provision is this for a lazy, 

 drunken race. 



The better class of workmen live 

 in adobe houses, but very few of 

 which contain more than one room. 

 A great majority, however, are 

 simple cave-dwellers, living in holes 

 in the mountains and in the banks 

 of canons. An ordinary house is 

 about ten feet square, and the en- 

 tire household possessions consist 

 of a "patate v or braided rush mat 



