Note 85 — Chapter CXXIV

Of this dreadful disease Gomara says, that it spread from Sempoalla through the whole of New Spain, and that in the greater part of the townships half of the inhabitants were carried off by it. It was a custom among the inhabitants to go immediately from a hot bath into a cold one, so that it was a wonder any escaped death. Those that survived could not help scratching themselves, which naturally left large scars, and rendered them hideous to look at. Torquemada agrees with Gomara, but adds, from the authority of the Indians, that this and other pestilential diseases spread at certain times through the whole of the country; and Bernal Diaz, in describing the person of the younger Xicotencatl, says his face was pitted as if with the smallpox. (p. 332.)