Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/282

204 a bedstead; with a bull's hide for a bed. It was a warm night, and I placed it opposite an open door, and looked out upon the water of the gulf. The waves were breaking gently upon the shore, and it was beautiful to see the Cosmopolita riding quietly at her anchor, without even 'Hezoos or the luggage in her.

At two o'clock in the morning we rose, and before three we started. The tide was low, and for some distance we rode along the shore by moonlight. At daylight we overtook the courier sent to give advice of my coming; in an hour crossed the river of Jesus Maria; and at seven o'clock stopped to breakfast at the hacienda of the same name.

While breakfasting, the woman of the house told me of a sick daughter, asked me for remedies, and finally requested me to go in and see her. The door opened from the shed, and all the apertures in the room were carefully closed, so as to exclude even a breath of air. The invalid lay in a bed in one corner, with a cotton covering over it like a mosquito-netting, but lower, and pinned close all around; and when the mother raised the covering, I encountered a body of hot and unwholesome, air that almost overcame me. The poor girl lay on her back, with a cotton sheet wound tightly around her body; and already she seemed like one laid out for burial. She was not more than eighteen; the fever had just left her, her eye still sparkled, but her face was pale, and covered with spots, seams, and creases of dirt. She was suffering from intermitting fever, that scourge which breaks down the constitution and carries to the grave thousands of the inhabitants of Central America; and, according to the obstinate prejudice of the country, her face had not been washed for more than two months! I had often been disgusted with the long beards and unwashed faces of fever and ague subjects, and the ignorance and prejudice of the people on medical subjects; in illustration of which Dr. Drivon told me of a case of practice by an old quack woman, who directed her patient, a rich cattle proprietor, to be extended on the ground naked every morning, and a bullock to be slaughtered over him, so that the blood could run warm upon his body. The man submitted to the operation more than a hundred times, and was bathed with the blood of more than a hundred bullocks; afterward he underwent a much more disgusting process, and, strange to say, he lived.

But to return: in general my medical practice was confined to men, and with them I considered myself a powerful practitioner. I did not like prescribing for women; and in this case I struck at all the prejudices of the country, and cheapened my medical skill by directing, first, that the poor girl's face should be washed; but I saved myself somewhat by making a strong point that it should be washed