As a matter of fact, without medicine or assistance we could have done little or nothing.
Oh, what a pestilence was that of which for three weeks or so we were the daily witnesses, for from the flat roof of the _hacienda_ we could see straight on to the _plaza_ of the little town.

And when at night we could not see, still we could hear the wails of the dying and bereaved, the eternal clang of the church bells, rung to scare away the demon of disease, and the midnight masses chanted by the priests, that grew faint and fainter as their brotherhood dwindled, until at last they ceased.
And so it went on in the tainted, stricken place until the living were not enough to bury the dead, or to do more than carry food and water to the sick.
It would seem that about twelve years before a philanthropic American enthusiast, armed with a letter of recommendation from whoever at that date was President of Mexico, and escorted by a small guard, descended upon San Jose to vaccinate it.

For a few days all went well, for the enthusiast was a good doctor, who understood how to treat ophthalmia and to operate for squint, both of which complaints were prevalent in San Jose.

Then his first vaccination patients developed vesicles, and the trouble began.

The end of the matter was that the local priests, a very ignorant class of men, interfered, declaring that smallpox was a trial sent from Heaven which it was impious to combat, and that in any case vaccination was the worse disease of the two.
As the _viruela_ had scarcely visited San Jose within the memory of man and the vesicles looked alarming, the population, true children of the Church, agreed with their pastors, and, from purely religious motives, hooted and stoned the philanthropic "Americano" and his guard out of the district.