170 



HEALTH. 



they make fatiguing journeys in the heat of the day, or 

 pass the night in the neighborhood of lagoons and marshes. 

 As respects yellow fever, about which so much is said here, 

 it there rages as an epidemic at times, but it is far from 

 being a prevalent disease in the island. Its characteristic is 

 the 4 black vomit,' and I met with different physicians who, 

 after practising for many years, had never seen fever ac- 

 companied with this symptom. There were some such cases 

 at Montego Bay when I arrived there, but they were few, 

 .and I heard of no more of them so long as I was in the 

 colony. 



Many of the physicians in the island administer calomel 

 and quinine, in very large doses, to all persons affected 

 with fever. But others of them condemn this mercurial 

 treatment as carried destructively far ; and they ascribe to 

 it much of that debility of constitution with which a pro- 

 portion of the colonists are afflicted, and which is commonly 

 charged on the enervating tendency of the climate. 



I could not learn of an instance where an invalid, or 

 any of his friends coming to Jamaica to spend a single 

 winter had died of fever. Persons affected with pulmonary 

 complaints are considered particularly secure from its 

 attacks." 



Elsewhere, in speaking of the class of invalids most 

 likely be benefitted by a visit to Jamaica, he says : 



" A physician of eminence in the island said to me, that 

 where hectic fever was strong and constant, the patient 

 should not come to Jamaica, as its warmth would proba- 



