On the Aborigines of Brazil. 20 



worm fevers in whole districts, which being totally neglect- 

 ed or ill-treated, quickly carry off the affected, and especi- 

 ally children, and girls near the age of puberty.* I myself 

 have had to suffer for months from a verminose dyscrasy, 

 and have seen in my companions all kinds of diseases com- 

 plicated with worms. It is no unusual thing to be disturbed 

 for nights in succession by the rattling in the throats of 

 patients, out of whose stomachs the worms creep, and cause 

 a constant sense of choking, till they are vomited up. 



The habit of drinking impure river water also causes 

 other serious affections. The waters of the Tocantin, which 

 in several places flow over large layers of gypsum, carry many 

 grains of it in their stream, and cause such a disposition 

 to stone as is hardly to be found in any other part of the 

 world. The Rio Guama also and the Moju tributaries are 

 said to develop this disposition. There can be little doubt 

 that the prevalence of calculous and nephritic diseases in 

 Brazil may be fairly ascribed to the use of impure drinking 

 water. In some localities in the middle and in the North- 

 east of Brazil, as in the provinces of Goyaz, Bahia, Pernam- 

 buco, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceara, in which the lime- 

 stone formations that most dispose to calculus occur, run- 

 ning water is wanting, as the smaller streams get quite dried 

 up during the long droughts. In those districts the Indians 

 usually dig for water in the deepest parts of the bed of the 

 river, and procure a much better and more wholesome water 

 than their neighbours the Brazilians, who commonly make 



* Worms are as frequent among the negroes as among the Indians in Guiana. 

 In this country they are common, and especially in seamen, and in children come 

 off long voyages. Troops proceeding on the river in country boats, [that sure mode 

 of sacrificing life] frequently have dysentery complicated with worms. In all these 

 cases the use of impure water is probably the main cause of their production. All 

 kinds of parasites are most common among those whose diet is poor. Thus maggots, 

 so often met with in the sores of natives, are rare among Europeans, and worms 

 are more common in the former than in the latter. It is curious that Rush states 

 he could find no accounts of worms occurring in grown-up Indians.— Tr. 



