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ON THE CLIMATE OF THE 



diseases which sojourners have chiefly to fear are 

 intermittent, and continued ardent fevers, affections 

 of the liver, cholera morbus, and dysentery. I 

 have entered at length, at another place, into the 

 discussion of these subjects, and shall merely observe 

 here, that by living temperately, by avoiding expo- 

 sure to the night air, or sleeping on the ground, and 

 by attending to the digestive functions, one may 

 contrive to live comfortably, and preserve tolerable 

 health, in most parts of Peru. On this part of the 

 coast we had but little sickness in the Conway ; but 

 some of the vessels trading along shore suffered 

 severely from intermittents, particularly at Arica, 

 and the Patriot Army under San Martin lost near- 

 ly one-third of their number when encamped at 

 Huacho, by dysentery and intermittent fever, and 

 their consequences. Most of the diseases of Lima 

 have their immediate origin in affections of the sto- 

 mach, so that there is no disease which they do not 

 refer to Empachos, or indigestions, literally surfeits ; 

 and these, and all their other complaints, they ulti- 

 mately refer to the effects of cold. Indeed, between 

 the tropics, the irritability of the human frame is so 

 much increased by the uniformity and continued 

 action of habitual stimulus, that it becomes sensible 

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