The Aborigines of Brazil. 169 



a hat, so that the hot sun strikes directly on the external 

 ear, which by night is either heated too much by close 

 proximity to the fire, or catches cold from resting on damp 

 leaves or sand. Hence catarrhal and rheumatic inflammation 

 of the ear is common enough, chronic discharges from it are 

 frequent. Here also people are quite aware of the fine sym- 

 pathy between the organs which secrete the bile, and those 

 which generate the bitter wax of the ear.(?) Erysipelatous 

 forms of inflammation, and indeed the irritation of the sand 

 fly, whose eggs are well known to produce most painful in- 

 flammation, frequently extend to the ear. 

 Mental diseases. 



From these the Brazilian savage suffers very seldom ; his 

 dull senses, his brooding melancholy, and the absence of 

 every thing that can awaken a higher and more refined spiri- 

 tual life, readily explain how he remains a stranger to all 

 those alienations of mind, which with us are caused by excit- 

 ed affections and morbid imaginations ; indeed, if we except 

 the momentary madness of drinking, and the rage of envy or 

 of hate, there remains scarcely a passion, which could lead 

 to derangement of mind in the Indian. But we occasion- 

 ally observe cases of imbecility and of idiotism, which are 

 probably caused by injuries of the head, or by internal dis- 

 eases terminating unfavourably. 



The only mental disorder, of which I have heard among 

 the Indians, may be compared more readily with lycanthropy 

 than with anything else, i. e. with that alienation of the mind, 

 in which a man out of his wits from madness, rushes into the 

 open air and imitates the voice and gestures of a dog or wolf, 

 and becomes a wer-wolf, i. e. a wolf-man. Dobrizhofer gives 

 a full account of the malady, and says that it only occurs 

 among the tribe of Nakaiketergehes. I have however heard 

 exactly similar accounts from missionaries and others on the 

 Amazon. After the Indian has remained for some time pale, 



