No active measures have yet been adopted to suppress the flagrant abuses of the Mata-sanos, who infest the interior villages of Peru; where, we regret to say, even the regular practitioner is a kind of public extortioner, who, persuaded that the price of his services is never to be paid after pain and the sense of danger are removed from the sick, is accustomed to make his bargain, and withhold his remedy till he secures beforehand his fee: and the bargain is usually screwed up to the utmost when the patient is known to be rich, and believes his own life in danger. In consideration of the medical destitution of the interior of the republic, and the crying evil thus entailed on the community, it was suggested to the legitimate government in the year 1835, that, from every prefectorate of the republic, a certain number of disciples should be sent to be educated at the common expense, in the medical college at Lima; and that after these young men had completed their studies, and were found duly qualified to exercise the medical profession, they should be made to return as practitioners to their respective provinces. This proposal would probably have been carried into effect, had the country been left to enjoy public tranquillity; and it is obvious how easily, under such an arrangement, villages and districts of several thousand inhabitants could, by contributing an average annual sum of only a few reals from each individual, procure for themselves a salaried medical adviser, from the midst of their own Indian or mixed population, in every way the most fitted to pass his time usefully and agreeably among his native hills. But, as things are at present, it is almost impossible, even at great expense to individuals, to procure proper medical attendance in the time of need; for the variable climate and temperature of the interior changing from hill to dingle, and frequently from league to league, is peculiarly unfavourable and disagreeable to the constitution and habits of the medical gentlemen of the coast, (among whom there are some highly respectable and able men,) who are commonly of various gradations of caste, from the black through all the tints between this colour and white or European; so that we need not be surprised at the reluctance of these individuals to undertake the practice, or expose themselves to the privations of the frigid regions of the interior. But the people of the Sierra, or upland of Peru, being unprovided with medical teachers of their own, can only rely on the capital and coast (where there is no scarcity of doctors, both native and foreign,) for the supply of such regularly educated physicians or surgeons as are here and there found in the interior; and even these are not always stationary in one town or province, but often ambulate backwards and forwards as their interest or inclination happen to dictate. But, whether settled permanently in one locality or not,