534 JAMAICA, 



of exercife, and cloathing, which anfwers befl: for fuppoiting this 

 regular flow, without carrying it to extreme, is the moft fahitary 

 for European Grangers to purfue. The natives, black and white, 

 are not fubjeft, like Europeans, to bilious, putrid, and malignant 

 fevers : they are not only habituated to the climate, but to a dif. 

 ference in refpe£t to diet and manners; which works no fmall 

 change in mens conftitutions. A Creole, if he was to addi6l him- 

 ielf to that kind of diet which is known to have a tendency to 

 produce putrid diforders, or an acrid, corrupt bile, would no more 

 be exempt from them, tiian an European. I knew a Creole boy, 

 oi' about iix years of age, who, being retrained by his mother 

 from eating any fort of fruit or vegetables (the former, left they 

 Ihould generate worms ; and the latter, through fear of acidities 

 and gripes) made his principal meal every day on butchers meat, 

 fowl, or fifh, without fait, feafoning, ' or any bread, except now 

 and then a very fmall quantity, and uafl"ied it down with plain 

 water. The boy, after perfifting for fome months in this regi- 

 men, was feized with a very violent, bilious, remittent fever, 

 accompanied with a delirhim and other bad fymptoms, that 

 threatciied his life ; but, by adminiftering the bark inwardly, ap- 

 plying poultices of it externally to the ftomach and abdomen, 

 and often foakinij his feet in a ftrona: warm decoftion of it, he 

 at length recovered, and doubtlefs owed his life to this noble fpe- 

 cific, thus thrown into his body by fo many different ways. But 

 the acrimony in his blood was apparent, from the vaft abun- 

 dance of bolls, whi^h broke out afterwards from head to foot. 

 I think it probable, that the luxuriant flelh-diet of Engliflimen 

 at home, together with fome fcorbutic taint in their blood, may 

 be afligned partly as an occafional caufe of their being more 

 obnoxious, generally fpeaking, to bad fevers in the Weft-Indies, 

 than many other Northern nations. This, however, is not the fole 

 caufe, bccaufe we find that Englilh women, who are alfo equally 

 flcdi-eatcrs, and liable to the fame fcorbutic taint in a degree, are 

 jiot fo often feized witli thefe dangerous fevers; nor are they at- 

 tacked fo violently, nor to fuch a degree of malignancy. Perhaps, 

 we may impute this diverfity to the more cool and temperate regi- 

 men of the women, their lefs expolure to heat and hard exercife in 

 .the jun, Isis addidion to intemperance, and late hours. 



There 



