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Show 184 must have started in Mexico at the beginning of the last century at the latest. He,bases this on verbal reports by old men now living in the Sierra of Juarez in the state of Oaxaca. He makes observations of an historical nature about this sone, populated at the time of the Conquest by flourishing Zapotec and Chinantec civilizations. The arrival of negroes in Oaxaca and Veracruz, probably from the Congo, is given due importance, for it is very possible that these Africans brought the disease to America; we must not forget that in Africa, it is considered as old as humanity itself. Therefore, a large part of the paper discusses the possibility of the disease having come from Africa. It also studies the history of work done on the infection. Data referring to the disease in Chiapas and Guatemala, where it appeared later, is less important. The newest outbreak on the Continent is in Venezuela, where it appeared first in 1947. The theory that the disease entered the Continent via Guatemala is also examined. The idea is that it extended from there to Chiapas and Oaxaca, due to the pilgrimages of the Zapotec Indians to the sanctuary of Esquipulas. This does not seem likely, since the pilgrims would have taken in rather than brought out the disease. However, there is still the possibility that these areas were independent foci, as Venezuela is today. In any case, the author seems to place onchocercosis in the mountains of Oaxaca, for the negroes with the disease entered Mexico via Alvarado, followed the Papaloapan River and finally settled in the cane and coffee plantations in the Sierra of Juarez at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, and their arrival marked the beginning of the disease. The disease was first reported in Oaxaca in 1880. This means that there was a lapse of eighty years, which might be considered an incubation period for the disease. On the other hand, we must not forget that Philip II in his census of the colonies, had reports of a disease similar to onchocercosis, which would lead us to believe that the origin of the disease is not Africa. Editorial. "El Alcohol y el Indio," America Indigena, XIV No. 4 (October, 1954), pp. 283-288. In Spanish and English. The Editor feels that alcoholism is mainly due to the lack of entertainment and he proposes some remedies to the problem. 1955 Kelly, Isabel (Estados Unidos). "El Adiestramiento De Parteras En Mexico, Desde El Punto De Vista Antropologico," America Indigena, |