Anglo-Americans' Liability to Ulcees. 591 



on the Amazons that the red man of this river-basin is a 

 very slight sweater — a fact that has always attracted at- 

 tention. One will sometimes find the skin of the Indian 

 I'ough, hard, and insensible, like the skin of the larger 

 lower animals. 



Next to the Indians who suffer from these skin affec- 

 tions, are the English and Anglo-Americans, who bring to 

 this moist country a well-toned system and appetite, and 

 who generally have to pay a severe toll for a long time 

 after their arrival by being the victims of numberless boils 

 or ulcers about the person. This might often be avoided 

 by lessening the amount of heat-making material which 

 they too generally seem to think necessary to use. The 

 Spanish-Peruvian or the Portuguese avoids this tendency 

 best — the relaxed fibre, rather more regular and temper- 

 ate appetite, and thin-blooded nature of the race making 

 him less susceptible to acute inflammation of the skin or 

 abscesses ; tliough there is a strong tendency to scrofulous 

 sores and " cold abscess " among them, which are hard to 

 manage. 



The Englishman or American generally recovers easily 

 from this deranged condition of the transpiratory surface 

 after leaving the climate, and here it may sometimes be con- 

 sidered a providential outlet which has saved some organ 

 from a destructive inflammation. One of the most an- 

 noying of the skin affections is an itching of the surface 

 of the body, apparently not attended by eruption, though 

 the almost irresistible tendency to scratch the part affected 

 will give rise to more or less superficial irritation. The 

 hyperesthesia of the skin is noticed more among the 

 strangers, and gives the notion of a " prickly heat," with- 

 out the eruption. It is sometimes intolerably annoying, 

 not only from its itching, but from the dread one has that 

 rubbing the part may cause irritable superficial ulceration. 



