BATAOES OP EPIDEMICS. 48 



Creoles;* even when black vomiting, and haemorrhage from 

 the nose, ears, and gums, indicated a high degree of exacer- 

 bation in the malady. I relate faithfully what was then 

 pi ven as the general result of observation: but I think, in 

 these numerical comparisons, it must not be forgotten, that, 

 notwithstanding appearances, the epidemics of several suc- 

 cessive years do not resemble each other ; and that, in order 

 to decide on the use of fortifying or debilitating remedies, 

 (if indeed this difference exist in an absolute sense,) we 

 must distinguish between the various periods of the malady. 

 The climate of Porto Cabello is less ardent than that of 

 La G-uayra. The breeze there is stronger, more frequent, 

 and more regular. The houses do not lean against rocks 

 that absorb the rays of the sun during the day, and emit 

 caloric at night, and the an- can circulate more freely between 

 the coast and the mountains of Ilaria. The causes of the 

 insalubrity of the atmospere must be sought in the shores 

 that extend to the east, as far as the eye can reach, towards 

 the Punta de Tucasos, near the fine port of Chichiribiche. 

 There are situated the salt-works ; and there, at the begin- 

 ning of the rainy season, tertian fevers prevail, and easily 

 degenerate into asthenic fevers. It is affirmed that the 

 mestizoes who are employed in the salt-works are more 

 tawny, and have a yellower skin, when they have suifered 

 several successive years from those fevers, which are called 

 * the malady of the coast.' The poor fishermen, who dwell 

 on this shore, are of opinion that it is not the inundations 

 of the sea, and the retreat of the salt-water, which render 

 the lands covered with mangroves so unhealthful ;f they 



I have treated in another work of the proportions of mortality in the 

 yellow fever. (Nouvelle Espagne, vol. ii, p. 777, 785, and 867.) At 

 Cadiz the average mortality was, in 1800, twenty per cent ; at Seville, in 

 1801, it amounted to sixty per cent. At Vera Cruz the mortality does 

 not exceed twelve or fifteen per cent, when the sick can be properly 

 attended. In the civil hospitals of Paris the number of deaths, one year 

 with another, is from fourteen to eighteen per cent.; but it is asserted 

 tlrit a great number of patients enter the hospitals almost dying, or at a 

 very advanced time of life. 



t In the West India Islands all the dreadful maladies which prevail 

 during the wintry season, have been for a long time attributed to the 

 south winds. These winds convey the emanations of the mouths of tht 

 Orinoco and of the small rivers ol Terra Firma toward the high latitude*. 



