again triumphed.

One of the reasons for the flattering (!) name of the town,
"Culmination of Evils," is the great mortality of the community, which
it has as a part of the great Javary district. Its inhabitants suffer
from all the functional diseases found in other parts of the world,
and, in addition, maladies which are typical of the region. Among the
most important of these are the paludismus, or malarial swamp-fever,
the yellow-fever, popularly recognised as the black vomit, and last but
not least the beri-beri, the mysterious disease which science does not
yet fully understand. The paludismus is so common that it is looked
upon as an unavoidable incident of the daily life. It is generally
caused by the infectious bite of a mosquito, the _Anopheles_, which
is characterised by its attacking with its body almost perpendicular
to the surface it has selected. It is only the female mosquito
that bites. There are always fever patients on the Amazon, and the
_Anopheles_, stinging indiscriminately, transfers the malarial microbes
from a fever patient to the blood of well persons. The latter are sure
to be laid up within ten days with the _sezoes_, as the fever is called
here, unless a heavy dose of quinine is taken in time to check it.

The yellow fever mosquito, the _Stygoma faciata_, seems to prefer other
down-river localities, but is frequent enough to cause anxiety. They
call the yellow fever the black vomit, because of this unmistakable
symptom of the disease, which, when once it sets in, always means
a fatal termination. The beri-beri still remains a puzzling malady
from which no recoveries have yet been reported, at least not on the
Amazon. On certain rivers, in the Matto Grosso province of Brazil,
or in Bolivian territory, the beri-beri patients have some chance
of recovery. By immediately leaving the infested district they can