588 The Andes and the Amazons. 



one may form of the patient under consideration, especial- 

 ly where affections of the chest are supposed to involve a 

 necessity for physical examinations. To this there is, in 

 the case of the Indian, added unusual excitability of the 

 nervous system, which lends to his want of confidence ad- 

 ditional obstacles ; and not unfrequently this compound of 

 fright and nervous exaltation suddenly deprives the doc- 

 tor of his patient, who may have incontinently put off for 

 the " bush," to escape the " foul fiend," be it the disease or 

 the "medicine -man." The poverty of their diet, which 

 consists only of dried fish and plantains, makes proper ali- 

 ment impossible ; and should a more appropriate diet be 

 suggested, very likely the poor fellow returns to his home- 

 ly fare, all unmindful of bad consequences.* 



The excitability of the nervous system is observable in 

 all castes of the native population, and the foreigner of 

 some years' residence also notices this somewhat in his at- 

 tacks of whatever disease. In the white Peruvian or Por- 

 tuguese there is superadded to this nervous condition an 

 ease with which the system seems to go down under slight 

 attacks, and a great languor of strength and appetite in 

 convalescence, which makes recovery tardy in this humid 

 atmosphere, and the results often not as satisfactory as 

 could be wished. Among the women of these races, their 

 now and then irregular tastes, as regards unusual aud un- 

 wholesome articles of food during convalescence, still fur- 

 ther increase the trouble. In this connection, it has oc- 

 curred to me that probably here the xmiversal custom of 

 all ages, sexes, and classes of society, of the use of tobacco 



* During the last year of my stay at Iquitos, a fearful epidemic of small- 

 pox committed ravages among the Indians, who were at first with great diffi- 

 culty persuaded to accept vaccination as a preventive, as they believed it to 

 be intended as a mark of subjection to the authorities. After a while, how- 

 ever, they came in from the adjoining settlements in crowds, and its effect 

 was most happy in stamping out the plague. 



