Note 7 — PART II

Le Gentil says (Voyage, ii, p. 29): “This animal [the hog] is so common there that they even use its fat for sauces, ragouts, and fried articles; for butter is not known in Manila, and there is very little use of milk there. The Manilans doubtless find less difficulty (for in that climate people are very fond of repose) in using pork fat in their food than in rearing and keeping cattle and making butter. This sort of food, joined to the heat and the great humidity of that country, occasions serious dysentery in many persons.” He adds (p. 123): “The venereal disease (or ‘French disease,’ as they call it, I know not why), is very common there [in Manila]; but they do not die from it; the great heat and copious perspiration enable people to live at Manila with this malady, they marry without being frightened at it, and the evil passes by inheritance to their children; it is a sort of heritage with which but few European families are not stained.”—Eds. ↑