1903.] ASHMEAD—HUACOS POTTERIES OF OLD PERU. 379 
the ‘‘ Madeleines’’ of France, as the cemeteries of the old leper 
asylums of the middle ages are called, found unmistakable evi- 
dences of its presence as early as the eleventh, twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries. Evidently many persons afflicted with that 
destructive disease were thought to be lepers and were locked up to 
die with them. In ancient Mexico this disease was considered as 
that of the nobles, the great, a sort of ‘‘ King’s evil.”’ The origin 
of it in America has been thought by the same scientists to be by a 
migration of those ancient races from Asia. This is also a great 
mistake. For had that disease come from Asia, leprosy would 
have come with it. Now there was no leprosy in those ancient 
races until Spaniards, Portuguese and negroes had inoculated 
them with the germs. Syphilis originally in America was the 
disease of the ancient llama, the pack-animal of Incans and 
Aymarans. 
When the ice age had retreated northward and the rivers and 
valleys of South America became flooded, man emigrated in two 
ways, in latitude with his beloved and necessary reindeer north- 
ward with the snow, and in altitude with his beloved and necessary 
llama to escape the floods. This animal was a part of his house- 
hold—his horse by day and his blanket by night, for its alpaca 
wool kept him warm on Andean heights. Thus man contracted 
the disease which belonged to the llama. 
As to the origin of lupus (wolf-cancer), which is also represented 
frequently on the ‘‘ huacos pots’’ of the mummy-graves, it came 
from the birds, especially parrots, of the Andes. Lupus is skin- 
consumption. Its germ is the bacillus of Koch. Insects would 
feed on the parrots dead of aviary tuberculosis and then inoculate 
human beings. Thus there would be local contamination, skin- 
tuberculosis, which quickly became systemic. As soon as the 
lungs of man became affected, his sputum acted as a means of pro- 
pagating the disease in his family and village. 
Amputation of the feet is also a common representation on these 
potteries and it is real, with flaps covering the ends of bones. But 
never is a hand shown as amputated. 
Noses and upper lips are represented as clean cut off, evidently by 
a surgeon of skill, to cure wolf-cancer of those parts. This surgical 
procedure must have been quite commonly practiced in those pre- 
Columbian days. 
In the guano beds of the Chincha Islands, as Mantegazza tells 
