ynesian Researches," published in
1836, remarks that at that date the disease, as above described, had but
recently appeared. In the nineteenth volume of the "Archives de Medecine
Navale," Rey mentions that at the Easter Island pulmonary phthisis is
the dominant affection with the adults, and that scrofula is very
prevalent with the children.[75]

The effect of syphilization in inducing a scrofulous taint and the
appearance of a rapidly-marching consumption among savage races has been
well observed among the Indians in the southwestern parts of the United
States, where the appearance of these fatal diseases can easily be
traced to that as a cause. There is something peculiar about the
Anglo-Saxon race that is fatal to the Indian; wherever they come in
contact, the savage race begins physically and morally to crumble; the
habits of the Anglo-Saxon in the matter of intemperance and his lust
soon end the poor Indian; while, on the other hand, the Latin races mix
with them without any physical detriment to the Indian. In what was
formerly the Northwest Territory the French and Indian intermarried, and
syphilis did not begin to tell on the Indian until the Americans settled
the country. From these observations it is very evident that in the
Polynesian Archipelago syphilis must have been the precursor of the
phthisis and scrofula, as we know it to have been that which induced
those diseases among the Indians of the Mississippi or Missouri Valleys,
or of the Colorado and Mojave Deserts, or in the mountains and valleys
of Arizona.

On the other hand, circumcised races, whose women have not carried a
syphilitic taint into the race, are as a class free from any syphilitic
taint. Neither their teeth, physiognomy, skin, nor general condition
denote any syphilitic inheritance. This is true of the Jewish
descendants of Abraham, who have more strictly adhered to the
non-intercourse or marriage with other races, and whose women have
abstained from vice; the Arabian descendants of Ishmael have, in a great
measure, also retained their marked family individuality, except it be a
few tribes, who, by contact with the soldiery of European nations, have
had their women corrupted and syphilis introduced into the tribe through
this channel.

Richardson, in his "Preventive Medicine," observing on the effects of
syphilis in inducing deterioration of the organs of circulation and
their degenerative changes, says that, in his opinion, syphilis i