274 HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



grant, that in fome countries in the wide compafs of 

 America men are expofed more than elfewhere to the 

 diilempers which are occafioned by the intemperature of 

 the air, or the pernicious quality of the aliments ; but 

 it is certain according to the aflertion of many refpe£t- 

 able authors acquainted with the new world, that the 

 American countries are for the mod part healthy ; and 

 if the Americans were difpofed to retaliate on M. de 

 Paw and other European authors who write as he does, 

 they would have abundant fubject of materials to throw 

 diicrcdit on the clime of the old continent, and the con- 

 ftituuion of its inhabitants in the endemic diftempers 

 which prevail there, fuch as the elephantiafis and leprofy 

 of Egypt and Syria the verben of fouthern Afia, 

 the dragoncello or worm of Medina, the pircal of Mala- 

 bar, the yaws or Guinea-evil, the tiriafi or morbus pedi- 

 cularis of Little Tartary, the fcurvy and dyfentery of 

 northern countries, the plica of Poland, the goitiers of 

 Tyrol and many Alpine countries, the itch, rickets, the 

 fmall-pox (^), and above all the plague, which has fo 



often 



(p) The elephantiafis an endemic difeafe of Egypt, and entirely unknown in 

 America, was fo common in Europe in the thirteenth century, that there were, 

 according to what Mathew Paris fays, an exact writer of that time, nineteen 

 thoufand hofpitals for it. 



(q) The fmall-pox was carried to America by the Europeans, and made as 

 great a havoc there as the venereal difeafe did in Europe. The rickets is a dif- 

 temper unknown in the new world ; this we conceive the principal caufe of 

 there being fewer deformed and imperfect fhaped people there than in Europe. 

 The itch exifts either not at all, or fo rarely, that during many years refidencc 

 in different countries of Mexico, we never faw one infected with that difeafe, 

 nor ever heard of any one who was. The vomito prieto, which appears to be an 

 endemic diftemper alfo, is extremely modern, and is not felt except in fome 

 places of the torrid zone frequented by Europeans. The firft who were feized 

 with it were the failors of fome European vefTels, who immediately after the 

 bad diet they had during their voyage, eat greedily of fruit, and drank immo- 

 derately of brandy. Ulloa affirms, that in Carthagena, one of the moft un- 

 healthy 



