Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/263

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MEXICO IN 1827.
247

the air in the higher regions exempts them from such visitations; and although the disorder may prove fatal to the patient, it has never been known to extend to those who attend him.

When once contracted, however, removal to a more healthy region is of no avail; the Vomito runs its course with equal violence at Jalapa, and on the Coast, and the event depends entirely upon the strength of the sufferer. In general it is remarked that the most robust in appearance are the first to sink under the attack: women are less liable to it than men, and very young children have, I believe, never been known to be affected by it. There is a difference too between the inhabitants of the Southern parts of Spain, or Italy, and other Europeans; the first being less frequently visited with the disorder, while very few natives of a Northern climate, if they become residents, for any time, at Veracruz, are known to escape it. Like the smallpox, it seldom visits the same person twice. Those who survive the first attack, particularly if it be a severe one, consider themselves as acclimates, and think no farther precautions necessary. The inhabitants of the Table-land of Mexico are even more liable than Foreigners to be seized with the Vomito on visiting the Coast. This is probably owing to the suddenness of the transition: the rapidity of the descent from Pĕrōtĕ allows no time for the body to become seasoned to the moist heat of the Tropics, so different from the dry and rarefied atmosphere of