60 ANATOMICAL, PHYSIOLOGICAL, AND 



The yellow fever, exercising its ravages upon shores equally 

 distant from whites and negroes, has brought very decisive 

 arguments into the question. We know, in fact, that the 

 whites suffer in America from the black vomit in all its vio- 

 lence; whilst the Negroes are not attacked by it, or if they 

 are, its effects are insignificant.* A ferocious maxim, one 

 worthy of the conquerors, has explained since the sixteenth 

 century this prerogative, which the Spaniards had so much 

 reason to envy, ' ' If we did not hang a Negro, he would never 

 die."f If some authors have timidly advanced the theory of 

 a former acclimatisation J with regard to marsh-poisoning, the 

 greater number of observers, Fenner, Nott, and Bryant, ought 

 to admit that there was, even in the constitution of the black 

 man, an obstacle otherwise absolutely unknown in his nature 

 to the manifestation of the yellow fever ; and that the black 

 blood appeared to carry on this resisting force to the mixed 

 breed, even if they were born far away. || 



An extremely interesting experiment relating to this immu- 

 nity of the Negro from the yellow fever, was tried largely 

 during the disastrous Mexican expedition, and the conditions 

 of this experience ought to give it a capital value. At first, 

 our soldiers paid a terrible tribute to this scourge, and then 

 the French Government took up the excellent idea of profiting 

 by the resistance of the Negro race to the black vomit. It 



* [" In spite of ' previous acclimatisation/ a Negro regiment was almost 

 entirely destroyed by chest disease at Gibraltar, in 1817, within the short 

 space of fifteen months." Acclimatisation of Man (Social Science Review, 

 February 21, 1863). EDITOR.] 



f Si no acontecia ahorcar al Negro, nunca moria." Compare Herrera, 

 Hist. Gener. de los Hcchos de los Castellanos, dec. 2, Book in, chap. xiv. 



J Bancroft (Essay 273) ; Blair, Some Account of the last Yellow Fever Epi- 

 demic of British Guiana, London, 1850 ; Jackson ; Hirsch, Handbuch dcr His- 

 torisch-Geographischen Pathologic, 36. 



" It is a well-established fact, that there is something in the Negro con- 

 stitution which affords him protection against the worst effects of yellow 

 fever, but what it is I am unable to say." Fenner. Compare Hirsch, Hand- 

 buch, 36. 



|j " The smallest admixture of Negro blood, even though the subject be 

 brought from a more northerly state, seems to be a potent antidote against 

 the morbid poison." Nott, Southern Journal of Medicine, February, 1847. 

 " The coloured people resisted the epidemic influence better than the whites ; 

 and, I believe I may hazard the observation, that their degree in resistance 

 \\ -;is in proportion to the admixture of white blood." Bryant, American 

 Journal, April, 1856, p. 301. Compare Hirsch, Handbuch, 36. 



