TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



diseases, on the other hand, are not so common, 

 and that weakness of the organs of digestion as 

 well as heartburn, which appears to increase to- 

 gether with the heat, and becomes almost the ge- 

 neral habit in the inhabitants of countries lying 

 nearer to the equator, is wanting here. Diseases 

 of the liver are not very rare ; they seem to have 

 their chief foundation in the melancholy or choleric 

 temperament of the Paulistas, and, probably, the 

 mixture with the Indian race is not without its 

 influence ; for it is very singular that the consti- 

 tution of the aboriginal American so greatly pro- 

 motes diseases of the liver and the spleen. We fre- 

 quently see in them a callosity and enlargement of 

 these organs, or stagnation of their powers, and 

 though we may consider the neglect of their bodily 

 sufferings as one cause of the malignity which these 

 disorders often acquire, yet the specific modifica- 

 tions of the action which the system of the vessels, 

 the liver, and the skin, assume in the Indian race, 

 may likewise have a considerable share in the pe- 

 culiar character of diseases as they appear in them 

 and their descendants. The cutaneous system 

 suffers less here than in the northern provinces ; 

 hence we see fewer pimples, chronic eruptions, and 

 sarna. Intermitting fevers, too, are rare at S. Paulo, 

 and when they do occur, they frequently proceed 

 from catarrh and rheumatism, which are induced 

 by the inferior degree of warmth, and the rapid 

 changes in the temperature. Goitres, of which we 



