Chapter X: The Amazon (2)

Based on the foregoing and other data, we shall now submit certain general conclusions on the climate of Brazil, and its influence on the human constitution in health and disease; these conclusions must be taken as more especially referring to the seaboard and the large cities on the coast; and the reader should bear in mind that some allowance must also be made for the difference in position and latitude of the northern, the southern, and the central provinces. We would further premise, that these observations are founded on our own personal experience of nearly a quarter of a century, and prior to the advent of the yellow fever which, for the last four or five years, has infested the maritime cities of the empire, and on which we shall presently offer some remarks.

The great characteristic of Brazil, as compared with other countries, is the general equability of its climate, and which constitutes, in fact, the chief element of its salubrity. This unparalleled uniformity of temperature must be chiefly ascribed to the absence of high and mountainous regions, and of all arid and sandy deserts, aided by the genial influence of refreshing showers at all seasons of the year; it is further maintained by the perpetual verdure of the country, and by a cool, powerful, and never-failing monsoon, laden with moisture, and sweeping along the entire line of coast direct from the Southern Atlantic. Thus, even in the height of summer, the diurnal heat is rarely found oppressive to the European, and the nights are almost invariably serene and beautiful, and unattended with much deposition of dew, especially in the northern and central provinces; so that the delightful coolness of tropical moonlight may be enjoyed undisturbed by those visions of fever and malaria which float before the imagination in less favoured lands. If precautions be observed to avoid exposure to direct currents of air, the windows of the sleeping chamber may also be left open with impunity at all seasons of the year; an advantage that can scarcely be over estimated in high latitudes, as disposing to sound and refreshing sleep; which, more perhaps than any other influence enables the European constitution to resist the deleterious effects of climate, just as a succession of hot and sleepless nights invariably predisposes the human system to be impressed by every tropical malady.

In proof of the singular salubrity of Brazil, we need only state that, until within the last four years, although its provinces have been at intervals visited by revolutions, wars, and famine, the country has hitherto escaped from all those epidemic and endemic scourges—_yellow fever_, _cholera_, _influenza_, _typhus_, and _dysentery_—which have so frequently desolated other, and the fairest regions of the globe. In this favoured land the solar heat proves scarcely less influential and salutary to animal than to vegetable life; and years of subsequent exhaustion can never entirely efface from the recollection of the European sojourner the buoyancy of spirit, unclouded mind, and exquisite appreciation of mere animal existence which marked the first years of his residence in Brazil. These vivid sensations may be in part determined by the novelty and splendour of a New World, its brilliant skies, perpetual verdure, and the variety, luxuriance, and beauty of its vegetable life; but they are chiefly due to the direct influence of the heat and light of a tropical sun, supplying a new and powerful stimulus to the performance of all the functions of animal and organic life. The medal, unfortunately, has its reverse: this favourable condition of the animal economy proves, as in vegetable life under similar circumstances, but of limited duration; and from five to seven years may be set down as the average period at which a tropical residence begins to affect the European constitution to such an extent as to influence longevity or injure health; the precise epoch being determined by the constitution, occupation, predisposition, and habits of the individual. It should be here stated that the month of April is that best suited to the stranger’s arrival in Brazil, as affording time for his gradual acclimatisation to the summer heat of December, January, and February; though we may observe, and the fact is singular, that the European suffers but little inconvenience from the highest temperature during the first years of his residence, just as the Brazilian seldom complains of the winter cold on his first arrival in Europe. The chief objection to the climate is, in addition to high temperature, its great humidity; shown in the rapid decomposition of all organized, and certain inorganic matter, the quick oxidation of metals, deliquescence of salts, destruction of wood, &c. &c.; and after a certain interval, the depression of moral and physical energy in man. The deleterious effects of this condition of atmosphere on the animal economy is happily tempered, if not entirely corrected in Brazil, by the general equability of its climate, and the influence of a cool and _never-failing breeze_, so that a stagnant, or even calm, state of the atmosphere is almost entirely unknown. Were this otherwise, the chief cities of Brazil inundated by the most offensive animal and vegetable exhalations,[73] and with an almost total neglect of those policial and sanatory regulations so essential to the public health in other countries, would, we are satisfied, prove no less fatal to man than the charnel houses of Africa and the West Indies.

In estimating, however, the influence of climate on the public health, the moral and physical condition of the people demands especial consideration. The Brazilian is in general well-formed, compact, and of healthy organization, but not of athletic frame. His intellectual faculties are acute, though little developed by cultivation. Descended from European ancestors, he has still a considerable admixture of African, and some native American blood. He is indolent by nature, and indisposed for active exertion or industry; but he is protected against the evil influence of the former on his health by a simple and abstemious diet, and the injurious consequences of the latter to his social position are obviated by the fact that the four great wants of the humbler classes in Europe press but lightly on the Brazilian. Fuel he scarcely requires, clothing but little; his primitive habitation is simply constructed, and one day’s labour will amply provide for the moderate demands of the whole week. With passions naturally quick, he is nevertheless placable; his disposition is kindly; the future rarely disturbs him with its doubts, or the past with its regrets: the struggles and vicissitudes of European life are unknown. The contentions of party, the yearnings of ambition, the bitterness of fanaticism, never disturb his repose; and after gliding down the stream of time, unscathed by the tumultuous passions and harassing cares which so frequently embitter the existence and undermine the constitution of man in other countries, he meets at length the inevitable doom, if not with philosophy, at least with resignation, satisfied of his claims to eternal felicity in the confident assurance of an infallible church.

From the preceding account of Brazil and its inhabitants, we would be led to conclude, _à priori_, that disease would there assume a mild and tractable character; and this inference we find fully borne out, until within the last twenty years, by the medical and general history of the country. Within the last thirty years, however, vast changes—moral, social, and political—have been developed in Brazil, and it interests alike the philosopher and the physician to mark how profoundly these changes have already impressed and modified the manners, habits, and diseases—nay, even the physiognomy of its people. After a brief struggle, the establishment of Brazil as an independent empire was effected in 1823; and since that epoch the country and its population have undergone a series of remarkable and comprehensive political and social changes. From the strict and simple forms of despotic government they have passed, at a bound, to one almost of license; including household suffrage, popular legislative assemblies (imperial and provincial), open courts of law, trial by jury, local justices, and a national guard elected on popular principles. This sudden and premature concession of political privileges to a people yet in the infancy of civilization has been naturally attended by great and numerous evils, mingled, it must be admitted, with many and great advantages. In the intoxication of a new-born freedom, the empire has committed numerous excesses; province has been arrayed against province, in a succession of intestine broils; the laws have been inefficiently or corruptly administered; and a lax morality has but too generally pervaded the whole community. On the other hand, an extensive and well-organized system of national education has been established throughout the empire; the slumbering intellectual powers of the nation have been aroused; wealth and intelligence developed; political and military ambition awakened; commercial enterprise created; agriculture revived; and of all those mighty powers which move and mould societies, the controlling influence of religion has alone remained stationary. The priesthood, deprived of wealth, power, and influence, has utterly-lost its _prestige_, unless, perhaps, with the very lowest classes of the community—a question of curious speculation as regards the cause, and of vast importance as regards its future results on the character and institutions of the Brazilian people. In addition to the foregoing rapid transition of society into new forms and combinations of social existence, we find the face of the country changed by the march of civilization and agricultural improvement,—woods cleared, roads opened, internal and external navigation developed, population largely increased, and the great maritime cities of the empire assuming an importance second to none, and superior to most, of the cities of the new world.

Coeval with these great and rapidly advancing changes, we can already discern some of those evils too commonly attendant on increased wealth, luxury, and intelligence: anxieties, excesses, passions are largely multiplied, and the medical observer cannot fail to distinguish, amongst certain ranks of the hitherto contented and indolent Brazilians, unequivocal traces of that premature ‘wear and tear,’ so strongly and painfully characteristic of high civilization. It now only remains that we should briefly notice the extent to which certain great classes of disease have been influenced and modified by the preceding moral and physical agencies. This is chiefly manifested in the increasing number of cerebral and pulmonary maladies, and diseases of the heart and great vessels. Insanity has also become much more frequent than formerly, though still rare as compared with other nations; which, indeed, might be inferred from the fact that the ‘Mad Doctor’ is a species of the profession as yet unknown to Brazil. Suppurative inflammation of the liver has increased, but of all the acute diseases, fevers have been the most profoundly modified; they partake much more generally of the low, or asthenic character, and assume the remittent and continued type, and are greatly more fatal in their results than formerly. This naturally brings us to the important question of the ‘yellow fever,’ which for the last four or five years has ravaged the great maritime cities of the empire. Its origin has given rise to the most conflicting views, amongst the best observers;—for example, Dr. Pennell of Rio, and Dr. Paterson of Bahia, both men of undoubted talent and great professional experience, entertain precisely opposite opinions; the former contending for the indigenous, the latter for the foreign origin of the disease; and both offer cogent arguments and striking facts in support of these opposite conclusions. The scope of this work does not admit of medical discussion, yet as the facts observed by Dr. Pennell are highly important, and as his conclusions entirely coincide with our own experience, we will condense them here. Dr. Pennell states that for some years the fevers of the country had been clearly changing their character, that the genuine remittent had been little seen for three years; that it was replaced in 1847, ’48, and ’49, by a fever of its own class, popularly known as the ‘polka fever,’ but in reality a remittent; and that this fever was, in its turn, superseded by the ‘yellow fever,’ a disease with similar features: he adds the following words, ‘coincident with these and other changes in the diseases of Brazil, the climate, in its broad features, has altered strangely: thunder-storms, formerly of daily occurrence, at a certain hour, during the summer, are now but seldom heard, &c.,’ and concludes, ‘that bilious remittent and yellow fever are essentially the same disease,’—a proposition entirely in accordance with my own experience in Brazil and other countries. The abettors of the foreign origin of yellow fever insist that it was imported by a certain ship from New Orleans into Bahia, and thence diffused throughout the empire; whilst the facts adduced by Dr. Pennell go far to establish, as already stated, its indigenous parentage. In support of this opinion we have the strong additional fact that, for the last forty years, there has existed uncontrolled by any efficient quarantine laws, an extensive intercourse with the United States, Africa, and the West Indies, the very hot-beds of yellow fever; and yet, up to 1849, Brazil remained perfectly healthy. Can we then in reason believe, if the disease be deemed really importable, that the maritime cities of Brazil could, under such circumstances, have escaped infection for a period of forty years? It is moreover important to know that several of the older writers, as Rocha Pita in 1666, Père Labat in 1686, Fereira da Rosa in 1694, have recorded the appearance of epidemics closely resembling the yellow fever, and which, after persisting for some years and desolating several of the large cities on the coast, finally passed away. Some seventy years ago, the capital itself was visited by an epidemic fever no less fatal to the population than that from which it now suffers.

From the above and other facts, we are firmly convinced that the yellow fever which now afflicts Brazil is not an _imported_ disease, but owes its origin to certain obscure atmospheric disturbances, embracing variations of temperature, hygrometric influence, electrical tension, atmospheric pressure, &c.; and judging from the previous history of Brazil, we believe that these unfavourable conditions are but temporary and will pass away, and that the country will again resume its former character of unparalleled salubrity amongst the tropical regions of the globe.[74]

PROPHYLACTIC MEASURES.—A few words on the precautions to be adopted by temporary as well as permanent residents in Brazil may perhaps prove useful. In the first place, all the ordinary hygienic laws should be attended to; the habitation selected should be in a dry locality, on a moderate elevation, and well ventilated, but at the same time protected against strong currents of wind; lengthened or direct exposure to the sun’s rays should be avoided, and all sudden vicissitudes of temperature guarded against. Loose waistcoats without sleeves, of fine flannel, should be worn next the skin, during the day, but never slept in; sleeping in the open air or unprotected, should be avoided. After exposure to rain, the clothes should be immediately changed; after exhaustion by exercise, or from any other cause, collapse or chill must be carefully guarded against, by avoiding for a time exposure to the cool breeze or by taking some slight stimulant, as coffee, wine, or a little spirits. Spirits, otherwise, should be altogether avoided, and wine resorted to only at dinner, in great moderation, and by those accustomed to its use. Generally, animal food should be used only at dinner; no supper; and no stimulating drinks, _however diluted_, should be taken between meals. Ripe fruit may be used before breakfast, and after the middle of the day, but never after the principal meal. Moderation IN EVERY SENSE must be observed. When compelled to go out early in the morning, the individual should take some support. In warm and swampy districts, over fatigue, or prolonged exposure to the sun, cannot be too carefully avoided, and the use of quinine, in moderate doses, should never be neglected; the cold bath, or cold sponging, every morning on getting out of bed, should be constantly resorted to. The sleeping apartments should be cool and well ventilated, but not exposed to strong currents of air.

Of all the above principles, refreshing sleep is the most efficient preservative to the European constitution against the inroads of tropical disease; but unless the above rules are pretty closely observed, sound and refreshing sleep in equatorial latitudes is unattainable. The _morale_ must never be lost sight of, and a calm and cheerful disposition of mind should be especially encouraged. The above prophylactic measures apply with equal or greater force to the European seaman on arrival in Brazil. In addition, awnings by day and by night are absolutely indispensable to health. Fatigue and dockyard duties, and watering expeditions, should never be permitted during the mid-day heat, nor should the seaman ever be permitted to sleep out of his vessel. The high importance of this latter injunction will be obvious from the fact that a difference of _fifty degrees_ will be found often to obtain between the heat of a mid-day tropical sun and the air near the earth’s surface at sun-rise. Surely, then, we need not evoke the phantom Malaria to account for the sudden supervention of malignant or fatal disease in seamen, or others, exposed during sleep to such great and sudden transitions of temperature, especially when their animal and organic powers have been depressed by previous exertion and profuse perspiration under a tropical sun, aided, too often, by intemperance and other excesses.

Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus.

Finally, we are profoundly convinced, by long and large observation, that if the foregoing principles are attended to, the most formidable localities of southern climates may be encountered with impunity, and especially as regards that dreaded, but visionary enemy, Malaria or marsh poison.[75]

RIO DE LA PLATA.

The sea-like Plata, to whose dread expanse,
Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course,
Our floods are rills. With unabated force,
In silent dignity they sweep along;
And traverse realms unknown, and blooming wilds,
And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude!
Where the sun smiles and seasons teem in vain,
Unseen, and unenjoyed. Forsaking these,
O’er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow;
And many a nation feed; and circle safe,
In their soft bosom, many a happy isle;
The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturbed
By Christian crimes and Europe’s cruel sons.
Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep,
Whose vanquished tide, recoiling from the shock,
Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe;
And Ocean trembles for his green domain.
But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth,
This gay profusion of luxurious bliss?
This pomp of Nature? what their balmy meads,
Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain,
By vagrant birds dispersed, and wafting winds?
What their unplanted fruits? What the cool draughts,
The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health,
Their forests yield? Their toiling insects what?
Their silky pride, and vegetable robes?
Whate’er the humanizing Muses teach;
The god-like wisdom of the tempered breast;
Progressive truth; the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whose silent powers
Command the world; the LIGHT that leads to HEAVEN;
Kind equal rule; the government of laws,
And all-protecting Freedom, which alone
Sustains the name and dignity of Man;
These are not theirs.—THOMSON.

NOTE TO THE PORTRAIT.—The sketch in the preceding page is copied from an early likeness, but can hardly be considered an accurate one now. In a book of this nature, which owes much of whatever attractiveness it may possess to his permission to avail of the pictorial and literary memoranda of his prolonged sojourn in South America, and especially in a chapter on the River Plate, in whose affairs he played so important a part in the chief crisis of its history, full biographical details of Sir W. Gore Ouseley’s career may reasonably be anticipated. For such purpose, however, the writer has access only to the ordinary data to be found in works of public reference; nor, if others of a private nature were open, would it, perhaps, be in the best taste to insert them here, as they would necessarily be supposed to be used with an unduly partial bias. Without entering at length into details more fitted for a genealogical work than for our pages, it will suffice to say that, previous to the sixteenth century, the Ouseley family was allied to several of the most ancient and honourable patrician names of this country, and thus their ancestry can be traced to a remote period. The Irving family, into which the late Sir W. Ouseley (father of Sir W. Gore Ouseley) married, is allied to the Douglases, the Rollos, and many other noble Scotch families. Referring to ‘Burke’s Baronetage,’ and ‘Landed Gentry,’ ‘Dod’s Knightage’ for 1854, and other cognate authorities, we find that Sir W. G. Ouseley is descended from an ancient Shropshire family who settled in Northamptonshire in 1571, the then head of the family, Richard Ouseley Ouseley, having received from Queen Elizabeth, under whom he was a judge, a grant of the estate of Courteen Hall, in that county, with many of the most eminent families in which the Ouseleys were connected, such as the Actons of Alderham, as also the Barons Giffard of Brinsfield, and Barons Lestrange of Blackmere.[76] Nicholas Ouseley, a relative of Richard Ouseley Ouseley, was envoy to the courts of Spain and Portugal, and some of his correspondence with Sir Francis Walsingham is preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. John, son of Richard Ouseley, was knighted by James I. in 1603, for his gallant conduct during the war in Ireland with the turbulent Earl of Tyrone. The diplomatic services of Sir John are mentioned in a subsequent note, and by Purchas in his ‘Pilgrims.’ Sir Richard Ouseley, his son, held the commission of major in the royalist army during the civil war between Charles I. and the Parliament, and in consequence of debts incurred in support of the royal cause he was obliged to sell Courteen Hall in 1650. The family then settled in Ireland, where they held Ballinasloe Castle, and afterwards Dunmore Castle, in the county of Galway, which latter remained in the family until the death of Major Ralph Ouseley, grandfather of Sir William Gore Ouseley. The major was a great antiquarian, and had a very fine collection of Irish antiquities, MSS., &c. His eldest son, Sir William Ouseley, served in the 8th Dragoons during the unfortunate campaign in Holland, where the British forces were commanded by the Duke of York; but after attaining the rank of major, he abandoned war for the more congenial pursuit of literature, and became a member of most of the learned and scientific societies of Europe. He published ‘Travels in Persia,’ (to which country he accompanied his brother, Sir Gore Ouseley, in 1810,) and many other works on Eastern antiquities and literature, in which he has left a mine of Oriental and classical learning that will always remain a monument of his great industry and talent. Sir G. Ouseley was the first ambassador accredited from the court of St. James’s to that of Persia, though Sir Harford Jones, Sir John Malcolm, and others, had previously been sent by the East India Company to that country. He was chairman of the Oriental Translation Society, to whose papers, and those of the Asiatic Society, he was a contributor. Sir William, who married the daughter of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Irving, (son of General Sir Paulus E. Irving, governor-general of Canada,) left a numerous family, the eldest of whom, Sir William Gore Ouseley, entered the diplomatic service at a very early age. He was attached to the mission at Stockholm in 1817, and in 1825 was appointed paid attaché at Washington. While in that capital, he married the daughter of Mr. Van Ness, formerly governor of the state of Vermont, and subsequently the United States envoy at Madrid. He was next appointed acting secretary of legation at Brussels during Sir R. Adair’s special embassy, and subsequently at Rio Janeiro, at which court he represented our government for several years as chargé d’affaires. In 1844 Sir William was named minister plenipotentiary at Buenos Ayres, and in 1845 special minister to the states of La Plata. In tardy acknowledgment of his important diplomatic services in South America, he received the Order of the Bath in 1852. He is the author of ‘Remarks on the Slave Trade,’ ‘South American Sketches,’ and several political pamphlets. We cannot forbear quoting a few lines from a critique on his ‘Remarks on the Statistics and Political Institutions of the United States,’ in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for December, 1832, which, although opposed to the views taken in that periodical of the United States and their institutions, had the fairness to say,—‘We have no desire to be severely critical on the _coup d’essai_ of a young author—one, we believe, of a family in which diplomatic ability may be called an hereditary possession.’ Some facts in connection with Sir William’s memorable mission to the River Plate will be found a few pages further on, as also in the notice of Rosas, whose enmity our minister had the honour of provoking in an eminent degree, by firmly protecting the persons and interests of his countrymen, and acting up to the spirit of his instructions. How deservedly he did so will be seen when we come to speak of one, at least, of those transactions of which the guilt has been incontestibly fixed upon the ex-Dictator within the last few months, but for accusing him of which at the time, our unsuspecting innocents at home deemed the British representative very culpable indeed, or, at least, very troublesome. Doubtless, so he was, as compared with certain of his predecessors and successors in the same post, who quietly winked at the atrocities of the despot without appealing to England against their continuance.