146 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



Caribs on the Maranon, and in the whole northern part 

 of Peru. 1 On the Upper Orinoco, small-pox is almost un- 

 known. 2 According to Molina 3 the Indians of Chili had at 

 that period suffered little of small-pox ; they must, however, 

 have known its fatal issue, as that author states that they set 

 fire to the huts in which they suspected a patient attacked by 

 the small-pox, so that he might be burned. Falkner, 4 however, 

 states positively that the Araucanians have been visited by this 

 pestilence. In Guiana, the villages Taruma, Atorai, and the 

 Taurai- Indians have disappeared together; and small-pox, 

 measles, and the fear of being bewitched by the Kanaima, have 

 nearly annihilated them. The number of the Macoushis dimi- 

 nishes daily, like that of the Wapisiana and Amaripa, to whom, in 

 regard to language, belong the Atorai. 5 Other diseases 

 besides the small-pox, such as measles, contributed to the 

 decay of the natives. Two-thirds of the aborigines of the 

 Oregon district perished by fevers and the small-pox. 6 Small- 

 pox and measles raged in the Mosquito country. 7 The want 

 of physicians and the perverse modes of treatment to which the 

 patients were subjected, contributed not a little to the fatal 

 issue of these diseases. 8 The so-called upper Chinooks were in 

 the year 1823 reduced by fever from 10,000 to 500, that, as 

 frequently happens among the North American Indians, the 

 living did not suffice to bury the dead. 9 



It deserves mentioning, 10 that the mere contact of different 

 races, though in perfect health at the time of their meeting, 

 frequently produces destructive diseases from which the inferior 

 race, or the aborigines who are visited by the strange race, 



1 V. Eschwege, " Journal v. Brasil/' i, p. 206, 1818 ; Labat, " Nouv. voy. 

 aux isles de FAm.," ii, p. 122, 1724; "Allerhand lehrreiche biief v. d. miss. 

 d. Ges. Jesu.," i, p. 60, Augsburg, 1726 ; Ulloa, " Voy. bist. de 1'Am. merid.," 

 i, p. 349, Amst. 1752. 



2 Humboldt and Bonpland, " Eeise," iv, p. 26. 



3 " Essai sur 1'hist. nat. du Chili," p. 23, 1789. 



4 " Beschr. v Patagonien," 1775. 



5 Schomburgk, "Jour. E. G. S.," xv, p. 26. 



6 De Smet, "Missions de 1' Oregon," p. 19, 1848. 



7 "Bericht Tiber d. Unters. des Mosquito," p. 21, 184-5 ; Young, " Narr. of 

 a resid. on the Mosquito shore," 2nd ed., pp. 24, 73, 1847. 



8 John Dunn, " Hist, of the Oregon territory," p. 115, 1844. 



9 Wilkes, v, 140; HaU, 215. 



10 Dai-win, German by Dieffenbach, ii, p. 214. 



