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page 171 ---diseases---medicine---hospitals---Public
health---
The Indians, who are very susceptible of imbibing
the poison, bring the disease to maturity with the greatest difficulty, and frequently fall
victim to it; which is attributed to the thickness and hardness of their
skin. The physician, who compares many diseases in Brazil,
such as the smallpox, syphilis, etc. with those in other parts of the
world, is led here to remark, that as each individual is subject, at every
stage of life, to particular climatical diseases, so whole nations, and
ages, more easily receive and develop certain diseases, according to the
respective state of education and civilization.
From this account it may be inferred, that at Rio
de Janeiro there are indeed dangerous diseases, but none that
can be properly called endemic. Perhaps even the hydrocele is only conditionally
to be considered as such. It may be easily supposed that where so many
strangers, from many different climates resort, the mortality must be
greater in the city than in the country; but this is not proof of any
malignant character of disease. We endeavored, but without success, to
procure lists of the deaths and burials, which would have given us some
information respecting the degree of mortality usual there. In general,
much remains to be effected by the future efforts of the government, for
the improvement of public regulations, and laws on this subject; as well
as for the cleaning of the streets, which at present is left to the care
of the carrion vultures, which are protected on that account; and for
the superintendence of the police over the sale of medicines, the practice
of physic, etc.; all of which will require the serious attention of superior
authority.
page 172
The two chief measures which have been hitherto adopted for the preservation
of public health, are the rigorous examination of the certificates of
health of ships arriving from foreign countries, and the introduction
of vaccination under the direction of a physician with respect to the
latter point, children and adults are vaccinated on certain days of the
year, in a public building; but the due examination of the state of the
patient as suited to the operation, and of the progress and consequences
of the disorder, in the patient, is hitherto very imperfect, or wholely
wanting. For all such matters, it is much more necessary in an infant,
thinly peopled state, to amplify the influence of the clergy, than it is
in Europe; until vaccination therefore is strictly enforced by measures
of police, in the same manner as baptism is by the authority of the church,
the country will remain exposed to the sudden and almost resistless ravages
of the smallpox, and consequent depopulation.
 
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