Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/432

376 was vitiated. In reality, every year, at a determinate season, epidemical fevers made their appearance, and readily degenerated into pains in the side, which were in most cases fatal. The inhabitants of the district attributed to the climate this malign influence; and in some parts the prejudice was so strong, that it was usual to name Tarma the country of tertian fevers.

Don Juan Maria de Galves, whose administration was so honourably distinguished by the re-population of the valley of Vitoc, a succinct account of which has been given, undertook to find the real cause of these calamities; and this cause he removed for ever. The talents of this worthy minister, and the philosophy by which he is characterized, were the counsellors, the physicians, and the remedies. The history is as follows:

In Tarma there is but one church; the population is numerous in proportion to the ground it occupies; and all the interments were made in the interior of the temple, according to the custom which, having been, since the eighth century, insensibly introduced into the whole of the christian world, has been confounded with piety and devotion. It was very natural to suppose, that the corruption of so many dead bodies, in a space so circumscribed and so much frequented, would be fatal to the health of those who resided in the vicinity: in this case, however, prejudice operated still more powerfully than reason. The diseases which originated from this abuse, and even the deaths manifestly arising from the infection of the air, did not suffice to remove the impression the inhabitants of Tarma had received. The intendant, superior to the tyranny of opinion, formed the project of a burial-ground