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common in many other parts of Brazil, particularly on the sea-coast. The sciatica 

 which afflicts travellers after long journeys on mules, is attributed by the people of 

 the country to the bodily heat of those animals, which is much greater than that 

 of horses, and communicates to the loins of the rider, occasioning almost constant 

 excruciating pain, which frequently becomes chronic, and sometimes incurable. 

 Being, on my return from the diamond district, much tormented with this com- 

 plaint, I was naturally led to make inquiries on the subject, and was informed, 

 that a person in the house where I then resided, had returned from a long journey 

 in the same predicament, and was about to undergo the mode of cure commonly 

 practised in the country. I was desirous of inquiring the nature of it, and begged 

 to be introduced to him. On conversing with him, I found that his symptoms 

 were similar to mine ; he complained of great pain in the os sacrum, and down 

 the left thigh to the knee, which afflicted him most when in bed, where he could 

 not bear to lie in any posture for half an hour together, but was obliged to rise 

 and wait until the warmth occasioned by the bed was abated, when he lay down 

 again. Thus he could get no sleep night or day. On asking if he had tried any 

 external application as a stimulus, he replied, that neither that nor any othi^r 

 remedy was of the smallest avail, except the one peculiar to the country. The 

 operation was as follows : — The patient lay down on a bench with his back up- 

 wards, and a youth, twelve or fourteen years of age, knelt upon his loins, and 

 continued to trample them (as it were) with his knees for about the space of half 

 an hour, apparently reducing the muscles almost to a jelly. In a few hours after- 

 wards, the part became highly discoloured, and had the appearance of being very 

 much bruised. If one operation had not the desired effect, another, and even a 

 third, would be had recourse to. It must be confessed, that this remedy, in 

 removing one evil, occasions another ; but the advantage is, that the latter is of 

 short duration, whereas the former endures sometimes for life, and gives continual 

 affliction. In some cases it has been applied with success, but, in others, it has 

 entirely failed. 



On the Use of Mercury in the Mining Department. 



The Government of Brazil would find it highly to their interest to promote the 

 use of mercury in the gold district. The process of amalgamation is so simple, 

 that there would be no difficulty in introducing it generally among the miners ; 

 and it would save much time and labour in the last operation of washing, or what 

 is called purifying. It is possible, also, that by the application of muriate of soda. 



