33 



are accustomed to come into Cliili for the benefit 

 of their healthy where they very soon recover. 

 A violent fever, accompanied with delirium, is 

 sometimes prevalent among the country people, 

 particularly in summer and in autumn. This 

 complaint, which the Indians cure with certain 

 herbs, whose properties they have learnt by ex- 

 perience, bears the name of chaTO longo, which 

 signifies the disorder of the head. The venereal 

 disease is but little known in the Spanish settle- 

 ments, and still less among the Indians. As the 

 last have no word in their language expressive of 

 it, there is every reason to presume that this ma- 

 lady was not known among them until after the 

 arrival of the Spaniards. The rickets, a disease 

 which for three centuries has been a scourge to 

 Europe, is as yet unknown within the bound- 

 aries in Chili, and lame or deformed persons arc 

 very rarely to be met with.* To many of the 



* The Creoles are generally v, ell shaped, and there are 

 scarce any of those deformed persons, so comfnon in other 

 countries, to be seen among them ; besides which, they almost 

 all possess great flexibility and activity of limbs. Philosophi- 

 cal History, book xi. chap. 18. 



Not only tlie Creoles, who are descended from the Europeans, 

 but also the aborigines of the country, display equal perfec- 

 tion of form. Some autliors pretend, that the reasort why 

 none who are deformed, or cripples, are t be found among 

 these people, is owing to the savage custom which the parents 

 have of destioying such unfortunate children at their birth ; 

 but this is a mere, picture of the imagination ; at least, among 



VOL. I, I> 



