284 
SUPPOSED SALUTARY EPPECT 
Iona yon may bathe tranquilly in the Eio Never! amidst 
these carnivorous reptiles. The jaguars of Maturin, Cuma- 
nacoa, and the isthmus of Panama, are timid in comparison 
of those of the Upper Orinoco. The Indians well know 
that the monkeys of some valleys are easily tamed, while 
others of the same species, caught elsewhere, will rather die 
of hunger than submit to slavery.* 
The common people in America have framed system' 
respecting the salubrity of climates and pathological pheno- 
mena, as well as the learned of Europe ; and their systems, 
like ours, are diametrically opposed to each other, according 
to the provinces into which the New Continent is divided- 
At the Eio Magdalena the frequency of mosquitos h 
regarded as troublesome, but salutary. These animals, say 
the inhabitants, give us slight bleedings, and preserve us, in 
a country excessively hot, from the scarlet fever, and other 
inflammatory diseases. But at the Orinoco, the banks 
which are very insalubrious, the sick blame the mosquitos 
for all their sufferings. It is unnecessary to refute the 
fallacy of the popular belief that the action of the mosquitos 
is salutary by its local bleedings. In Europe the inhabit" 
ants of marshy countries are not ignorant that the bisects 
irritate the epidermis, and stimulate its functions by the 
venom which they deposit in the wounds they make. E :U ’ 
from diminishing the inflammatory state of the skin, the 
stings increase it. 
The frequency of gnats and mosquitos characterises un- 
healthy climates only so far as the development and multi- 
plication of these insects depend on the same causes tin 1 
give rise to miasmata. These noxious animals love a fertu’ 
soil covered with plants, stagnant waters, and a humid :H r 
never agitated by the wind ; they prefer to an open country 
those shades, that softened day, that tempered degree ° [ 
* 1 might have added the example of the scorpion of Cumana, win 0 * 1 
it is very difficult to distinguish from that of the island of Trinidad, Jamah’ 11 ’ 
Carthagena, and Guayaquil ; yet the former is not more to be feared tb»" 
the Scorpio europseus (of the south of France), while the latter produce* 
consequences far more alarming than the Scorpio oeeitanus (of Spain » n ‘ 
Barbary). At Carthagena and Guayaquil, the sting of the seorp'" 11 
(alacran) instantly causes the loss of speech. Sometimes a singn^ 1 
torpor of the tongue is observed for fifteen or sixteen hours. The patienb 
when stung in the legs, stammers as if he had been struck with apophV’’' 
