Amongst the Payaguas there exists a law that if any of them dies of a disease, the physician who undertook his cure shall be put to death by the arrows of the assembled people; and being desperately addicted to revenge, they are steadfast in the execution of this cruel law. During my residence in the city of Asumpcion, an unhappy physician atoned for the death of his patient by his own. Were this law in force amongst the Abipones, fewer of them would profess themselves followers of Galen; they would shun the dangerous profession of medicine, and physicians would cease to grow like funguses in a night. Of this I am quite sure, that in every Abiponian horde there are more physicians than sick persons: deterred by no danger of loss of fame or life, and certain of reward, they besiege the beds of the sick, and suck away their strength in every disease. When questioned on the patient's danger, they make the happiest forebodings. If the event turn out contrary to their prognostics, they have always a ready excuse: the disease was a fatal one, or their skill was baffled by the magical arts of some other juggler; the matter rests here, for it would be a crime to doubt the excuse of a juggler. Though sucking is the chief and almost only cure in use amongst the Abipones, yet they have some dream-like ideas of our remedies. At times, when oppressed by the heat of the sun, or inflamed with a feverish burning, they will draw blood by piercing their arm or leg with a knife. Medicinal herbs, of which their country produces so great a variety, they scarce know by name, yet are desirous of being thought well skilled in the mysteries of nature. Hence, not so much in the desire of restoring the sick person, as of increasing their own reputation, they would sometimes prescribe the leaves of a tree, or the roots of some little known plant, on which the druggist might safely write _quid pro quo_, these remedies being generally of such a nature, that they are more likely to miss than be of any service. At the end of a fatiguing journey, I fell ill in the town of Concepcion. A woman, of high repute for skill in the healing art, comes and gives me a large dark root, promising me the complete restoration of my health, if I would drink it well boiled in water. I shuddered at the medicine, but still more at the old hag that prescribed it.