14 On the Aborigines of Brazil. 



Corresponding with this coldness of the extremities, the 

 Brazilian savage has also a small slow pulse, which has no 

 elasticity, and yields under the pressure of the finger. In 

 healthy men I often counted only from 55 to 68 beats in the 

 minute ; in the women, who on the whole excelled the men 

 in liveliness, the beats were 76, 80, and more. 



Inactivity oj Vital Functions — Nutrition. 

 All that I have hitherto said regarding the physical pe- 

 culiarities of the Brazilian savage, points to a want of sensi- 

 bility, to an inactivity and langour of the vital functions. More 

 close examination confirms us in this impression. The Indian 

 has, comparatively speaking, only weak powers of assimilation. 

 He can digest with ease only the kinds of food to which he 

 is accustomed. He digests more easily a raw diet of over- 

 ripe roots and fruits, or of ill-prepared flesh, than food which 

 has been cooked and seasoned. He eats slowly, while he 

 tears with his fingers the pieces of flesh along the course of 

 its fibres, and chews them long. He eats at one time a large 

 quantity of food, but digests it slowly.* He never disturbs 

 his digestion by a second meal, as he seldom has any super- 

 fluity of food for another repast. His chief meals are 

 usually at intervals of four and twenty hours. His feeding is 

 slow, but regular and uniform. He keeps himself in health 

 and strength only by a uniform course of life, and by the 

 stimulus of the employments to which he is accustomed, and 

 of which he is fond. When placed in an altered position, 

 or in one that is repugnant to his habits, he immediately ex- 

 periences dissatisfaction, dislike of every occupation to which 

 his former life did not accustom him, and becomes a prey to 

 deep depression and despondency, the process of nutrition 

 fails, he fleshy elasticity of his limbs wastes away, and his 



* American Indians are supposed to eat very large quantities of food, butCatlin 

 says, that under ordinary circumstances, a North America Indian does not eat more 

 than a European. — Tr. 



