Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/267

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MEXICO IN 1827.
251

tient, if he survives, is indebted for his recovery to the goodness of his own constitution. This, at least, is the language of our English physicians, though I have seen the copious bleedings, and still more copious use of calomel, which our sailors endure at Jamaica, prove fatal at once, when tried upon the less robust constitution of a Spaniard. No clever medical man has yet practised at Veracruz. An American doctor, who was very successful there in the early part of 1826, was carried off by the disease himself at the end of the season; and no good account has been given, either by him, or any one else, of the change which the late influx of foreigners has produced in the proportion of the number of deaths to that of the persons attacked by the fever, which Humboldt states, in the best of the Veracruz hospitals, (in 1804,) not to have exceeded sixteen in the hundred. The Vomito has become, I believe, much more generally fatal, since natives from so many of the Northern parts of Europe have been exposed to its action: I know, however, some instances of persons who have escaped, and whose general health has been even improved by the dangerous crisis which they have undergone.[1] .

    a large tumbler of oil and lemon-juice, by the master of the inn. Youth, (he was only nineteen,) and a good habit of body, probably contributed still more effectually to save him, which they did after a severe struggle.

  1. Amongst the most remarkable of these instances I might mention Don Rafael Beraza, who is employed as King's Mes-