Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/776

756 coast lines formed an actual fever belt which could not fail to have a certain effect even beyond its limits. Still, the plateau, which contained the mass of the people, enjoyed as fine a climate as could be desired; and as the Indians with their frugal and more natural habits were a rather healthy race, ordinary maladies and slighter ills did not greatly affect them, such as indigestion and accompanying troubles. Colds, acute fevers, pleurisy, catarrh, diarrhoea, and consumption did of course have their victims, particularly with the increase of artificial habits among the wealthier classes. Spasms and intermittent fevers were frequent on the coast, bilious fevers on the.western slopes, and measles, introduced shortly after the conquest, committed at times extensive ravages. Leprosy, known as San Lázaro's evil, existed, and had its special hospitals, the use of pork and chilechili [sic] being reckoned among influencing causes, and also uncleanliness and venereal diseases, although the latter were not very severe.

The great scourges were matlazahuatl, small-pox, yellow-fever, and famine, of which the first two made seemingly periodic visitations with desolating effects, and almost exclusively among Indians, especially the matlazahuatl. Of this little is known save that it bore a resemblance to yellow fever in its vomit symptoms, and raged with equal vehemence on the highland, both before and after the advent of the Spaniards. The most severe years were 1545 and 1576, when from 800,000 to 2,000,000 persons perished, according to Torquemada. The years 1736-7 and 1761-2 were long remembered for their inflictions. Small-pox