56 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



disorders of the most various kinds, are here 

 treated with a degree of success which is often 

 astonishing. Both the rapidity with which in hot 

 countries all organic processes go on, and the 

 frequently almost too bold interference of the 

 half-taught physician, by desperate remedies and 

 by excessive doses, may likewise be among the 

 causes of the success of many modes of treatment 

 which in Europe would be condemned as hazardous. 

 The circumstance too, that most of these do- 

 mestic remedies are taken immediately from their 

 living state for medical purposes, is of great im- 

 portance, and, perhaps, too little attended to in 

 Europe, where the state of civil society keeps us 

 at a greater distance from nature. The European 

 medicines from the vegetable kingdom have lost 

 most of their virtues before they have reached 

 this country, and the Brazilian physicians there- 

 fore substitute, without hesitation, the native pro- 

 ductions for many that come from abroad. Only 

 for a few remedies, for example, Iceland moss, 

 the squilla, aconite, digitalis, opium, which latter, 

 however, seems frequently not to act favourably, 

 sufficient substitutes are not yet known here.* 



We had been only a few days at Ypanema, when 

 the report of the arrival of two foreign physicians 

 had spread far and wide through these lonely 

 regions, and patients came from all quarters, who 



* See Note 1. page 90. 



