Pulmonary  diseases  are  the  most  rapid  and  fatal.  There  has  existed,
and  may  yet  exist,  in  the  United  States  an  impression  that  "  consump-
tion *  was  not  native  in  this  region,  and  that  the  climate  is  favorable  to
that  disease.    Facts  and  statistics  prove  that  it  is  quite  the  reverse.
Diseases  of  the  bowels,  chronic  and  acute  diarrhea,  and  dysentery
are  the  ruling  diseases  of  the  region  in  point  of  frequency,  and  compete
closely  with  the  pulmonary  class  in  the  aggregate  of  mortality.
Malignant  typhus  sometimes  becomes  epidemic,  and  carries  off  thou-
sands in  a  season.
Cases  of  intermittent  and  remittent  fevers  are  much  more  frequent
than  would  appear  by  the  tables,  but,  being  less  Mai  in  their  character,
do  not  figure  in  the  death  lists  to  any  extent.
From  1869  to  1872  small-pox  was  epidemic  in  the  city,  causing  the
death  of  3,522  persons,  and  leaving  its  impress  on  the  faces  of  the  living
to  an  extent  that  L  have  never  observed  in  any  other  population.
In  1870  there  were  336  deaths  from  whooping-cough,  and  354  from
bronchitis  the  same  year.
There  is  an  occasional  death  from  yellow  fever,  but  as  that  disease
cannot  propagate  at  this  altitude,  it  is  buried  with  the  victim  who  has
brought  it  from  the  coast.
Among  the  infirmities  which  do  not  figure  on  the  death-roll,  rheuma-
tism is  one  which  is  most  frequent  and  causes  most  suffering.
Affections  of  the  eyes,  terminating  in  blindness,  are  also  very  com-
mon in  this  region.
We  might  complete  the  catalogue  by  adding  the  names  of  most  of
the  diseases  known  to  the  medical  profession  in  America  and  Europe,
.but  presume  it  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  have  indicated  only  those
which  are  most  prevalent  and  most  fatal.
68  CONTINENT  OP  AMERICA:    MEXICO.
