OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUICHUNCHULLI. 143 
feeling of general ease and comfort; that their limbs were 
lighter and more flexible, and that the sense of touch, and the 
use of their hands and feet, were partially restored, so that 
some of them could handle a knife or a fork, work with a 
needle, or walk tolerably fast, which they were more or less 
unable to do before; most of them besides thought that their 
tubercular swellings were somewhat lessened, but such a re- 
duction was to my eyes scarcely apparent. The natural se- 
cretions and excretions were sometimes moderately increased 
after taking the powder, but no one among them complained 
to me of very copious vomitings, purging, or secretions of 
urine or of saliva, neither did I witness the prompt curative 
effects which Messrs. Arvelo and Aroche observed in Miss 
Macpherson and in Puche. On the contrary the progress of 
the patients here has been comparatively slow, and their cure 
has, in truth, scarcely begun; but it has been to me no slight 
satisfaction to find that, in one of the most obstinate and loath- 
some of maladies, any sensible amendment, such as that ac- 
knowledged by the six patients now under consideration, could 
be brought about in the course of the five or six weeks only 
during which they were treated with the Cuichunchulli. It 
is right also to mention, first, that in all these cases I abstained 
from employing any of those other medicines, from which my 
previous experience in the treatment of that disease would 
have led me to expect useful aid; and secondly, that, as pa- 
tients, the Lazars in the asylum laboured under serious dis- 
advantages, because their food was only that allowed to the 
people confined for misconduct in the House of Correction; 
besides which most of them were very insufficiently clothed; 
but I made no objection to the patients on either of these 
scores, my object being to put the remedial powers of the 
Cuichunchulli to the clearest, though it might be the severest, 
test, which I was induced to do by the uncommon, and, I now 
believe, over-rated virtues ascribed to it by Padre Velasco. 
Had my trials been restricted to less advanced cases of the 
disorder, they would perhaps have been more successful. But, 
although no doubt exists in my mind that the Lazars in the 
