Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Nigua Therefore Distinguishes What The Most Delicate
Chemical Analysis Could Not Distinguish, The Cellular Membrane And
Blood Of A European From Those Of A Creole White.
The mosquitos, on
the contrary, attack equally the natives and the Europeans; but the
effects of the sting are different in the two races of men.
The same
venomous liquid, deposited in the skin of a copper-coloured man of
Indian race, and in that of a white man newly landed, causes no
swelling in the former, while in the latter it produces hard blisters,
greatly inflamed, and painful for several days; so different is the
action on the epidermis, according to the degree of irritability of
the organs in different races and different individuals!
I shall here recite several facts, which prove that the Indians, and
in general all the people of colour, at the moment of being stung,
suffer like the whites, although perhaps with less intensity of pain.
In the day-time, and even when labouring at the oar, the natives, in
order to chase the insects, are continually giving one another smart
slaps with the palm of the hand. They even strike themselves and their
comrades mechanically during their sleep. The violence of their blows
reminds one of the Persian tale of the bear that tried to kill with
his paw the insects on the forehead of his sleeping master. Near
Maypures we saw some young Indians seated in a circle and rubbing
cruelly each others' backs with the bark of trees dried at the fire.
Indian women were occupied, with a degree of patience of which the
copper-coloured race alone are capable, in extracting, by means of a
sharp bone, the little mass of coagulated blood that forms the centre
of every sting, and gives the skin a speckled appearance.
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