Iago del Estero, because they feed principally upon the alfaroba. Add to this that the Abipones bathe almost every day in some lake or river. Bathing was certainly much practised, and reckoned of singular utility amongst the ancients. For as the dirt is washed off by the water, the pores of the skin are opened, and the perspiration of the body rendered easier and more commodious; a great advantage to the health. Some prefer cold bathing to bleeding, for by the one process the blood is only cooled, by the other it is exhausted. To continual bathing therefore, the Abipones are in a great measure indebted for the health and longevity which they possess to such an enviable degree. This opinion is confirmed in Bacon's History of Life and Death, where it is asserted that "washing in cold water contributes to lengthen life, and that the use of warm baths has a contrary effect." P. 131. The same author is of opinion that "persons who pass great part of their lives out of doors are generally longer-lived than those that stay more within." The Abipones spend most of their time out of the house, and consequently breathe the pure air of heaven which is so salutary to the human body. Though they dwell under mats spread like a tent, or in fixed huts, they never suffer the air to be entirely excluded. Nor are they content with living in the open air, they also choose to be buried there, entertaining an incredible repugnance to sepulchres within the church. As the Abipones live long and enjoy excellent health, though entirely destitute of physicians and druggists, I can hardly help reckoning their absence amongst the causes which co-operate to render the savages superior in vigour and longevity to most Europeans, amongst whom as physicians are numerous, and medicine in general use, there are many sick persons and few very old men. The Abiponian physicians, of whom I shall speak more fully hereafter, are impostors more ignorant than brutes, and totally unworthy the splendid title of physicians, being born not to heal the sick, but to cheat them with juggleries and frauds.