One Day I Went To See A Very Fine Young Woman, The Lady Of One Of The
Xeriffes.
The heat of the room was intolerable.
After much persuasion,
I succeeded in having her removed to a cooler one, and she recovered,
contrary to the predictions of the female attendant, who reported the
daily changes to a celebrated doctor here. It is wonderful what
numbers of young women fall victims to this fever in the course of a
year.
Besides the above-mentioned complaints, I have observed insanity,
epilepsy, spasmodic affections of the face, ruptures of all kinds
(which last are produced by their loose kind of trowsers); nervous
consumptions, extreme debility, and dropsy, brought on by their
indolent manner of living, and the great abuses of violent doses of
drastic medicines.
The principal and opulent inhabitants of this country, in order to
excite certain desires, are frequently in the habit of receiving, from
their own doctors, several strong and powerful stimulants, to the
infallible detriment and ultimate, destruction of their
constitutions. I have been at great pains to deter them from these
abominable habits, by representing to them their ill effects and fatal
consequences; but as they all appear to have a great propensity for a
short life and a merry one, I fear my advice has been thrown away, for
I have daily the most pressing and importunate solicitations from all
classes of people, both young and old, to give them the medicines I
have alluded to: - but 1 must here be clearly understood, that
debauchery which exists in all the principal towns of this country in
a superlative degree, does not extend to the inland and mountainous
parts, where the morals are pure, and the people remarkably healthy,
strong, and robust, living to a very advanced age, and scarcely ever
afflicted with any disease excepting cutaneous disorders, to which
they are very subject.
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