In this instance the error, for which the French physician was blamed, consisted in his having overlooked the popular rule universal in Peru, and probably not unknown in Chile, that “acido sobre la leche es malo,” viz. that acid after milk is hurtful. According to this rule in Peruvian dietetics, it would be considered little short of poisonous to use milk or cream with any sort of fruit, jam, or preserve containing the least quantity of acid. And here it may be noticed, that in their own preserves, they completely destroy the rich and distinguishing flavour of the fruit by an excess of sugar, just as they annihilate, in very bad taste, the peculiar and natural fragrance of their finest flowers by sprinkling upon them foreign and artificial perfumes. IX. _Los olores son malos para las recien paridas._—It is one of the social customs of Peru, sometimes attended with great inconvenience, that friends and visitors, moved by feelings of kindness, crowd into the rooms of the sick, when not perhaps in a fit state to enjoy company or conversation. During their confinement ladies are not sufficiently exempted from this friendly intrusion, or neighbourly attention. The only restraint imposed upon those who visit a lady on such an occasion is, that they do not enter her apartment with flowers or perfumes; nor are the attendants permitted to introduce censers with the fumes of burning incense, as is customary at other times. Thus, it is acknowledged that “Los olores son malos para las recien paridas,” viz. that perfumes are injurious to women during their confinement; and they certainly are so, for they are frequently observed to give rise to fainting, convulsions, or other bad consequences. These precautions all who visit or wait upon the sick are strict in observing; and so much the more, as it is customary for females in every rank to use perfumes on their dress, and to decorate their heads with flowers for evening visits: a practice in which the woolly-haired negress and mulatta greatly excel, as they love to adorn their stunted curls with flowers of aroma and jessamine. Parturient women are very subject to a sensation of languor and exhaustion at stomach, attended with a feeling of faintness, which they call “_fatiga_.” On ordinary occasions, when this feeling or sensation is experienced by females not similarly situated, it is usual to resort to cordials and odoriferous draughts containing lavender, hartshorn, &c. and also to stimulating embrocations applied over the seat of the stomach, which usually consist of a camphorated mixture, or perhaps Cologne water, and other such remedies applied in common cases of weakness and faintness referred to the stomach; but, under the circumstances to which our rule refers, all applications of this sort are inadmissible.