HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



425 



feminal fluids, uteri esiuantes and virulent courfes, have 

 never been wanting either. Such caufes therefore could 

 have produced the French evil in Europe, as they pro- 

 duced it, according to Aftruc, in America. 



" No," anfwers this author ; " they could not ; be- 

 " caufe the air being more temperate in Europe, (he 

 " has recourfe to the air, after he had excluded it from 

 cc the number of caufes of the French evil) non adest 

 " eadem in virorum femine acrimonia, eadem in menstruo 

 <c J "anguine virulentia, idem in utero mulierum fervor , 

 " quales in infula Haiti fuiffe probatum est : (the proofs 

 " of Dr. Aftruc are no others than thofe above fet forth 

 " whence he adds,) that thofe fymptoms cannot be pro- 

 <c duced there from a fimilar concourfe of caufes. Of 

 " difeafes, and their caufes alfo, we ought to judge, as 

 " of the generation of animals and plants. As lions are 

 " not bred in Europe, nor apes propagate, nor parrots 

 <c build their nefls, nor many Indian or American plants 

 " grow in Europe, although they are fown there ; in 

 " like manner, the French evil could never be produced 

 " in Europe by thefe caufes, from whence, as we have 

 Ci already faid it was, produced in Hifpauiola ; becaufe 

 " every clime has its particular properties, and thofe 

 " things which arife in one clime fpontaneoufly can by 

 " no art be produced in another ; for as the poet fays, 

 " non omnis fert omnia tellus." 



We fliall grant many things to Dr. Aftruc which 

 would not be granted to him by any other perfon. We 

 grant that there has never been in Europe that abufe of 

 feminiarum men struat arum ^ nor that acrimony nor viru- 

 lence in the fluids of the human body, nor that heat in 

 the uterus which he fuppofes in the ifland of HifpanioJa ; 

 although the contrary appears from the books of medi- 

 Vol. III. 3 I cine 



