102 MORE MINOR HORRORS 



and was soon introduced by ships into St. 

 Christopher and, later, into Guadeloupe. The 

 following year it was in Cuba, and in 1655 in 

 Jamaica, and it gradually spread throughout 

 the whole of the West Indies until a century 

 or more later it reached the Island of St. 

 Thomas. 



One of the peculiarities of the disease is 

 that it frequently disappears from a given 

 locality for long periods of time. For instance, 

 it was absent in Barbados after the first 

 outbreak until 1690, and when it recurred it 

 was at first not recognised as being the same 

 disease which devastated the islands forty- 

 three years before. In the eighteenth century 

 there was another break of fifty-four years, 

 and similar breaks can be recorded in most 

 of the West Indian islands. 



Besides the West Indies, it is at present 

 endemic in Brazil and on the west coast of 

 Africa, and is common in Mexico. Whether 

 the disease arose primarily in Africa and is 

 part of the toll the American continent has 

 had to pay for the slave-trade, or whether it 

 was brought to the west coast of Africa from 

 the other side of the Atlantic, is not certain. 

 It apparently appeared as a regular disease 

 in Brazil in the year 1849, and from that time 

 onwards, with the exception of one year, has 

 been a permanent trouble at Rio. From time 



