172 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 34 



Among the Huichol suicide, though infrequent, occurs in both 

 sexes. The cause is mostly jealousy, destitution, or domestic 

 troubles. The usual method is by hanging. 



Among the Otomi, Mazahua, and Aztec suicides are infrequent. 

 The most common means is hanging. 



In na instance has the writer heard of a suicide by drowning. 



XL MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS 

 Pathogeny 



Numerous agencies capable of affecting the Indian's health have 

 already been mentioned in other connections. 



Irritations of many kinds and an occasional graver disorder are 

 caused by parasites and insects. The most troublesome of these 

 pests, besides the ubiquitous mosquito, are various minute insects 

 found in the warmer and wetter parts of Mexico that burrow into 

 or under the skin. A large number of a species of mites are apt to 

 cause fever, and individuals of another variety, which have a partial- 

 ity for the toes, cause local suppuration which, if neglected, results 

 occasionally in the loss of a toe. Fortunately the areas of distri- 

 bution of these insects are restricted. They cause much suffering 

 among the Iluastec, east of the Otomi (Hidalgo) region. The bites 

 of certain ^lexican ants are very painful. Bites or stings of spiders, 

 centipeds, scorpions, snakes, particularly the rattlesnake, and the bite 

 of the Gila monster, which is of rare occurrence, are additional causes 

 of painful and sometimes dangerous conditions. Scorpions, scarce 

 in Arizona and New Mexico, abound in southern Sonora, Sinaloa, 

 Durango, Jalisco, and Tepic, and stings by them are quite common. 

 They are occasionally fatal to children and may cause death in 

 debilitated adults." Venomous snakes are numerous only in certain 

 localities and are more common in the wet than in the dry season. 

 Bites by snakes other than the rattlesnake were not heard of, but 

 those inflicted by the latter are not rare. The writer saw two Indians, 

 one a child and the other an adult, recently bitten by rattlesnakes. 

 Both of these recovered. He also heard of a number of similar cases 

 among the Indians as well as among mixed-bloods and whites, but in 

 none of these instances did the bite prove fatal. Recovery is usu- 

 ally attributed to the administration of "medicine" or employment 

 of other means, to be described later, but more probably it depends 



a The scorpion sting, which the writer once experienced himself, produces locally an immediate and 

 intense hm-ning, then a moderate and slowly extending swelling and tumefaction, with numbness and 

 a high degree of hyperesthesia of the parts near the wound. In the writer's case the numbness lasted 

 several days and slight local dysesthesia was leix mucn longer. Systemic sjanptoins in ordinary cases 

 may be wanting, or there may develop a feeling of constriction in the throat, accompanied with difli- 

 culty in breathing and an unpleasant sensation in the head. The initial symptoms are nearly the 

 same in all, but the graver ones differ with individuals. The worst effects are said generally to follow 

 the sting of the small white or reddish scorpion. A large black variety is feared but little. 



