BAT AGES Or EPIDEMICS. 
43 
Creoles ;* even when black vomiting, and. haemorrhage from 
the nose, ears, and gums, indicated a high degree of exacer- 
bation in the malady. I relate faithfully what was then 
given as the general result of observation : but I think, in 
these numerical comparisons, it must not be forgotten, that, 
notwithstanding appearances, the epidemics of several suc- 
cessive years do not resemble each other; and that, in order 
to decide on the use of fortifying or debilitating remedies, 
(if indeed this difference exist in an absolute sense,) we 
must distinguish between the various periods of the malady. 
The climate of Porto Cabello is less ardent than that of 
La Guay ra. The breeze there is stronger, more frequent, 
and more regular. The houses do not lean against rocks 
that absorb the rays of the sun during the day, and emit 
caloric at night, and the air can circulate more freely between 
the coast and. the mountains of Ilaria. The causes of the 
insalubrity of the atmospere must be sought in the shores 
that extend to the east, as far as the eye can reach, towards 
the Punta de Tucasos, near the fine port of Chichiribiche. 
t here are situated the salt-works ; and there, at the begin- 
ning of the rainy season, tertian fevers prevail, and easily 
degenerate into asthenic fevers. It is affirmed that the 
mestizoes who are employed in the salt-works are more 
tawny and have a yellower skin, when they have suffered 
several successive years from those fevers, which are called 
the malady of the coast.’ The poor fishermen, who dwell 
on this shore, are of opinion that it is not the inundations 
ol the sea, and the retreat of the salt-water, which render 
the lands covered with mangroves so unhealthful ;f they 
v 1 have treat ® d m a ?°!J er worlc of th e proportions of mortality in tlie 
yellow fever. (ISouveUe Espagne, vol. ii, p. 777, 785, and 867.) At 
Cadiz the average mortality was, in 1800, twenty per cent; at Seville, in 
1801, it amounted to sixty per cent. At Vera Cruz the mortality does 
atf ? j Ge< * twelve or fifteen per cent, when the sick, can be properly 
en ed. In the civil hospitals of Paris the number of deaths, one year 
wi i another, is from fourteen to eighteen per cent.; but it is asserted 
a a great number of patients enter the hospitals almost dying, or at a 
very advanced time of life. 
t In the West India Islands all the dreadful maladies which prevail 
uring the wintry season, have been for a long time attributed to the 
sou i winds. These winds convey the emanations of the mouths of the 
nnoco and of the small rivers of Terra Firma toward the high latitudes. 
