Medical Notes. 611 



whole sections of country became entirely deserted ; the 

 sick were left to die uncared for, or death was anticipated 

 by throwing the sick into the river, while numbers perished 

 from the frantic wish to rush into the water to relieve the 

 intolerable heat of the body. No system of vaccination 

 has been pursued by the government or the communities 

 where the whites live, and a " happy-go-lucky " theory pre- 

 sides over the destinies of village-life on the Maranon, 

 The tariola makes its way from the intei-ior towns, such 

 as Moyobamba and Tarapoto, to which the Ucayali and 

 Maranon Indians make their way to trade in fish, wax, 

 sarsaparilla, curiosities, etc. 



Some five or six years ago, an epidemic of dysentery 

 prevailed here in Iquitos; but those who were here then 

 — which was some three years after its foundation as a 

 government place — have given me no satisfactory account 

 of numbers or character of the complaint. Epidemic dys- 

 entery, some time in the last century, also made its ap- 

 pearance about "the country of the Cerro de la Sal, near 

 the head of the Ucayali River; and, according to the 

 manuscripts of the old Fi-anciscan friars, it desolated the 

 district for some years. 



Such is a brief sketch of what the medical wanderer en- 

 counters after a short stay among the native and foreign 

 population of the basin of the Maranon and Ucayali rivers. 



In this retrospect, possibly there will be found some 

 prominent difi^erences between this section and the trop- 

 ics of the East Indies. The terrible dysenteries, the dis- 

 astrous fevers, and the extreme derangements of the liver, 

 among the Oriental sojourners, are never encountered 

 here, under 3° south latitude, with a tropical forest em- 

 bracing thousands of square leagues. Tlie difference may 

 be ascribed, probably, to the fact of a less elevated annual 

 heat, which does not reach abo\e 26° C. ; to a greater una- 



