The Aborigines of Brazil. 167 



trade with them. Every expedition brings brandy and its 

 melancholy consequences among isolated tribes and villages : 

 we however trace the destructive effect of spirituous 

 drinks, and especially of new brandy made from sugar, 

 less here, than among the more civilized Indians along the 

 coasts of Bahia, Pernambuco, Parnaiva, Maranhao and Para. 

 There, where there is the largest population of civilized 

 Indians, brandy has exerted its baneful influence over large 

 masses of people. Besides the corruption of morals to 

 which it has led, it has had a material share in causing the 

 ever increasing mortality, in augmenting the strange steri- 

 lity of the Indian, and in increasing the quantity of liver 

 disease. 



Hcemorrhoidal affections. 



They occur in various forms, and are frequently connected 

 with the chronic liver disease, which they usually precede. 

 As a characteristic and very frightful disease of this nature, 

 I must mention a complaint which prevails in the low damp 

 districts of the provinces of Maranhaa, Piauhy, Pernambuco, 

 and Bahia, and is called Doenca do Bicho, or Bicho do Cu> 

 and was described long ago by Piso as the scourge of the 

 population. The coast Indians call it Teicoaraiba, i. e. anus 

 rubens. It consists in relaxation, protrusion, and finally 

 gangrene of the rectum, and if not at once checked by the 

 most active measures, leads invariably to a fatal result. 

 This fearful disease is oftenest observed at the termination 

 of epidemics of dysentery. I have remarked a carcinomatous 

 form of it in horses in the province of Piauhy. 



Diseases of the organs of the senses. 

 From what I have already said regarding the senses of 

 the Indian, and of his miserably narrow sphere of existence 

 as compared with that of civilized Europeans, we might pre- 

 sume that he is not subject to many diseases of the senses, 

 and such is in reality the case. 



