DIFFERENCES IN DISEASE. 399 



sleep sound in every disease, nor does any mental disturbance 

 ever keep them awake. They bear chirurgical operations 

 much better than white people ; and what would be the 

 cause of insupportable pain to a v/hite man, a Negro would 

 almost disregard. I have amputated the legs of many 

 Negroes, who have held the upper part of the limb them- 

 selves." 



Negroes are so seldom affected by the yellow fever, tliat 

 they have often been said not to be susceptible of it ; and 

 there have been instances in which, under a very general 

 prevalence of the complaint, not one has fallen sick. On 

 other occasions, some have been seized with this fever ; but 

 the number has been small, and they have recovered more 

 easily than the whites. 



If the yellow fever be a highly inflammatory affection, 

 produced by those external causes which are peculiar to hot 

 climates, we shall not be surprised that Negroes, v/ho are 

 organized for, and habituated to such climates, enjoy, when 

 contrasted with the whites, a comparative exemption from 

 its destructive attacks. 



A singular instance is recorded, in the Philosophical 

 Transactions *, of a very fatal inflammatory fever, which 

 appeared in two islands on the coast of North America 

 (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard), and was confined en- 

 tirely to the Indian (American) population ; not a single 

 white person having been affected on either island. The 

 whole number of Indians on Nantucket was 840 ; of these 

 258 had the distemper in the course of six months, and 

 only 36 recovered. Of those who did not take the disease, 

 40 lived in English families, and 8 dwelt separate. In 

 Martha's Vineyard, it went through every Indian family 

 into which it came, not one escaping it. Of 52 persons 

 affected, 39 died. A few individuals of mixed breed (Eu- 

 ropean and Indian), and one of In^lian and Negro, had the 

 distemper, but recovered. None indeed died, but such as 

 were entirely of Indian blood : hence it was called ' the 

 Indian sickness.' ____^ 



* Vol. 54, for the year 1761; p. 386. 



