Medical Notes. 587 



the mixed blood of white and Negro ;* but he is generally 

 a stranger from the interior, or the Pacific coast, where 

 his people make up a large class of laborers and soldiery. 

 The Spanish-Peruvian, especially the children, are a sin- 

 gularly sprightly people, of high nervous excitability, spas- 

 modic in their endeavors, but easily tired of work, mental 

 or manual ; they idealize a great deal, and have a good 

 deal of the vague relics of imperialism of palmier days 

 lingering about their pride and indolence. The Portu- 

 guese is dull, as regards esprit^ but of toiling energy, and 

 lives more ;miformly, and without the disposition to par- 

 oxysmal excitation of his competitor, the Peruvian. 



In estimating symptoms of diseased action, these pecul- 

 iarities of race must enter largely into the phenomena 

 which any particular complaint may exhibit. In the In- 

 dian, the first impressions of sickness produce an apathy 

 or inability to care for his own condition, which forms a 

 troublesome part of the physician's care. Of course, where 

 a stranger is the medical attendant, there is added to this 

 constitutional apathy an extreme, though very natural, 

 want of confidence in the stranger and his remedies, and 

 it is almost useless to leave medicines to be administered 

 — the doctor has to see them given in his presence if he 

 wishes to accomplish any thing. 



Accustomed to the use of the native remedies of their 

 forests, some of which are efiicacious in the tropical com- 

 plaints, and looking upon a request to put out the tongne, 

 or an attempt to feel the pulse, or any other cabalistic de- 

 mand, as a species of sorcery different from their own, and 

 generally to be resisted to the death, the system of " heroic 

 guessing " not unf requently enters largely into the opinion 



* The zamho in Peru is tiie offspring of the white and the Negro ; but in 

 other parts of South America this cross is known as the mulatto, while the 

 zamho properly is the child of the native Indian and the Negro. Some in 

 Peru use this latter cross to define the word ^' zambo," however. 



