334 
E. F. BRUSH. 
cold winters and warm summers, badly housed and fed during 
the long months of cold weather, have no dairy cows, and 
enjoy an entire absence of phthisis. Take, as nearly as we 
can get, a diametrically opposite geographical and climatic 
condition, and we find Quito, the highest city in the world, 
situated ten thousand feet above the sea-level, located at the 
equator. “No torrid heats enervate the inhabitant of this 
favored spot, no icy breeze sends him shivering to the fire.’ 
“ The mean annual temperature is 58 deg., the extremes 45 
deg. and 70 deg. F.”* Now, we have quite positive and au¬ 
thoritative statements regarding this city. Professor James 
Orton, of Vassar College, who made a scientific expedition to 
the equatorial Andes in 1867, under the auspices of the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution, says, at Quito, “suddenly we are looking 
down into the valley of Chimbo 5 there are herds of cattle and 
fields of grain, yet we shall not find a quart of milk or a loaf of 
bread for sale. Thousands of cattle are raised on the Paiamos, 
but almost wholly for beef. A dislike to milk (observed by 
Humboldt), or at least an absence to its use before the arrival of 
Europeans, was generally speaking, a feature common to all na¬ 
tives of the new continent. Some cheese, mostly unpressed 
curd,and a little butter, are made, but in the patriarchal style; 
only one American churn is in operation (in Quito, with a popu¬ 
lation of 80,000). The people insist on first boiling the milk, 
and then stirring it with a spoon; custom is omnipotent heie, 
and its effect is hereditary.” Professor Orton further says: 
“ Consumption is unknown in the city.” The testimony is 
unanimous that phthisis does not exist in Quito, but on the 
plains in Ecuador, according to Dr. Archibald Smith, who 
practiced there for twenty-five years, “ the disease is not 
uncommon.” 
Professor Orton, after leaving Quito and traveling toward 
the Amazon, makes the following observation, which clearly 
indicates that the dairy cow exists in other parts of this coun¬ 
try : “ 4 he following day we advanced five miles to Tablon, 
an Indian hamlet on the mountain-side. There we waited 
* Orton, “Andes and Amazon,” p. 92. 
