Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 003.djvu/97

 Nor hath this Laudanum Simplex (by his observation) only this effect in the Indies, where he faith, he used it in all cases to all ages, even sucking Children, but that even here in England he gave it not long ago to a Lady in the Colique bilious, never weighing it, and it eas'd her pains, yet did she never apprehend, that she had taken any such thing, and all the night, if any did but stirre, she could hear them as perfectly, as ever she could when she slept naturally.

Seventhly, he takes notice, that the Observation, which Oviedo hath about Lice, which is, that they leave the Spaniards as they go to the Indies in such a degree, and meet them again in the same Latitude in their return, is very true. For though the ships, they went in, with such a multitude of Servants and Seamen, were not over-cleanly, yet (as he remembers) before they came to the Tropick, there were none Lowsie; whereas before, one could not walk amongst them, but his cloaths would gather Lice. In the Indies (faith he) none are Lowsie, how nasty soever, except it be in their heads; and there they breed much: but he could never hear of the most nasty, that ever they had them in their shirts or cloaths. And in their return home he did observe, that they did multiply again, after they came to about the Latitude of the Maderas. Discoursing with his Captain and others about the reason of it, the ingenious Sir Christopher Mings, one of the most observing persons in the World, said, that when they approach the Long-reach and Tropick, they begin to sweat excessively, which sweat abounding over the body, cloaks the old Lice and kills them: Just thus, he said, it was an usual remedy for lowzy heads, to rubb them all over with Butter or Oyl, and he would warrant, it would kill all the Lice. And as for any new generation, the sweat not lodging in the pores long enough, it was not disposed to produce these vermine at all; for no sweat in the Indy's is rank, as in Europe, that ever he could observe. In their return, the sweat lodgeth longer in the pores and habit of the body, and the particular forms or ferments, being exalted and unloosen'd, and put into activity, shape out those creatures, and so they breed them. But if you ask, why they breed in the Head in the Indies; He answers, that though our faces sweat much, yet doth not our hair so much: besides that Rh