Prof. Bandolier's Views on Huacos 
Pottery Deformations and Pre- 
Columbian Syphilis. 
BY 
Albert S. Ashmead, M. D., 
NEW YORK. 
REPRINTED FROM THE 
Journal of Cutaneous and Genito-Urinary Diseases 
for February, 1896. [Reprinted from the Journal of Cutaneous and Genito-Urinary Diseases 
for February, 1896.] 
PROF. BANDELIERS VIEWS ON HUACOS POTTERY 
DEFORMATIONS AND PRE-COLUMBIAN SYPHILIS. 
By ALBERT S. ASHMEAD, M. D., 
New York. 
New York, March 29, 1895. 
Prof. A. F. Bandolier, Lake Titicaca, Peru. 
Dear Sir: I am studying the question of pre-Columbian leprosy 
in Colombia and Peru, and have had an opportunity for studying the 
huacos pottery which you sent to the American Museum of Natural 
History. Mr. Saville kindly showed me three specimens, with nose 
and lip gone ; two others, with distorted jaws; another, with amputated 
feet, etc. But, in all these specimens, bands and feet were perfect. 
Dr. Muniz, of Lima, Peru, is inclined to believe that leprosy existed in 
Peru before the arrival of Spaniards and negroes. He so wrote me. 
He says that there are evidences of pre-Columbian leprosy on the 
huacos vases in Peru. Mr. Cushing writes me that he found no evi- 
dences of this disease in ancient Arizona, which is of great importance 
as the ancient Arizonians and the Incas belong probably to the same 
race. Besides all this, leprosy is almost extinct in Peru, which would 
not be the case unless there had been perfect isolation, and perfect 
isolation can only be the consequence of a horror of the disease. If 
such horror had existed, would they have been likely to bury with 
their dead representations of the abhorred evil ? The representations 
which I have found on the huacos pottery in the American Museum 
are, in my opinion, not leprosy, but syphilis; the latter, being a dis 
ease of the better classes and a mark of distinction, there would be 
in the mind of those antique races no indignity in burying syphilitic 
representations with their dead. If leprosy had existed in South 
America before Columbus, it could have come from no other place but 
East Asia, unless we admit, with Brinton and Powell, the autoch- 
thony of American civilization ; and can we admit the autochthony of 
such ancient East Asiatic diseases in America as syphilis and leprosy? 
Will you be kind enough to give me your opinion as to whether 
you consider any huacos images as unmistakable representations of 
leprosy, not syphilis; and will you kindly, if you can, send me photo- 
Copybight, 1896, by D. Appleton and Company, 2 
Original Communications. 
graphs of such huacos pottery as represent in your opinion leprous 
lesions? Will you also allow me to take photographs of such huacos 
deformations as are in Mr. Saville's hands? I should, moreover, be 
obliged to you if you would inform me if the clay image of the foot, 
natural size, in Mr. Saville's hands, is to be considered huacos pottery, 
and whether it is pre- or post-Columbian. 
I shall be immensely obliged if you will confer these favors on me 
and assist me in my studies with any other advice which you may 
deem useful. I have the honor to be your most obedient servant, 
Albert S. Ashmead. 
Prof. Bandelier, the explorer of the American Museum of Natural 
History, sent me the following letter; it corroborates all my conclu- 
sions regarding pre-Columbian leprosy. 
They are: 1. The deformations on figures represented on pre- 
Columbian huacos are syphilis and lupus. 2. There is no positive 
trace of pre-Columbian leprosy. 3. Tuberculosis (lupus) and syphilis 
have certainly existed and flourished in pre-Columbian America. 
Here is the letter: 
La Paz, Bolivia, September 6, 1895, 
Dr. Albert S. New York City. 
Dear Sir: Your letter of inquiry, dated March 29th, reached me 
on the island of Titicaca in Bolivian waters on the 13th of May. I was 
then and have remained until a few days ago unable to attend to any 
but the most indispensable and most concise correspondence, as my 
right arm is invalidated by writer's cramp in the highest degree, and I 
had no typewriter then at my command, the one which I brought to 
Bolivia having been wrecked last year, and the typewriter on which 
this is written arriving only last July, and even then greatly damaged 
through the imbecility of the Bolivian custom-house employees. The 
machine is now fairly in order again, and this is the second letter 
for which it is used. You will thus understand why your communica- 
tions have not been replied to at an earlier date. Besides, the islands 
of Titicaca, etc., are so inaccessible that months and months may 
elapse sometimes ere one can receive or send postal matter. No 
adequate idea is held in the United States of the difficulties accom- 
panying life on those secluded isles, which no steamer touches unless 
by special permission, and where we remained at one time three 
months and a half without seeing any kind of craft whatever, the 
indigenous balsa not excepted. Prof. Bandelier's Views on Huacos Pottery Deformations. 
3 
I am glad that some of the collections which the American Museum 
has received through me have proved to be of some service to you, and, 
ere I reply to your inquiries, must state that through the kindness of 
our excellent friend here, Minister Moonlight, I have been able to 
peruse your treatise on pre-Columbian leprosy, which has been a 
source of both pleasure and profit. Permit me, however, as a prelimi- 
nary remark, to inquire whether the bones which you mention in the 
terminal note as having come from "Llujon, Bolivia, five miles over 
the Peruvian line," are perhaps some of the bones which we sent from 
Llujo. If this should be the case, then you have been misinformed in 
regard to the location of the site. The Lluju or Llujo which we ex- 
plored in Bolivia lies very far to the southeast of Tiahuanaco, at the 
foot of Illimani, and correspondingly distant from the Peruvian border. 
Its ruins stand in no relation whatever to those of Tiahuanaco. This, 
in case that it should be "our" Llujo, and not another locality called 
Llujon, of which we have as yet no knowledge. 
I have not with me my journal of the year 1892, and hence can not 
furnish you with the information touching the Pachacamac foot as de- 
tailed and positive as I would desire. But I recollect that the speci- 
men, which at once attracted my attention in the highest degree, was 
obtained from the great burial place at the foot of the partly artificial 
mound on which, according to Miguel Eztete, stood the adoratory of 
the idol or fetich to which the name Pachacamac had been given, and 
at a considerable comparative depth, say ten or twelve feet beneath 
the surface. That it is not only pre-Columbian but also the work of the 
•coast people (not Inca nor of mountaineers in general) there can be no 
doubt. All the Pachacamac remains, a few specimens perhaps ex- 
cepted, which I can not now remember, belong to the so-called Yunca 
or coast-Indian type of artefacts, and they are certainly anterior in 
date to 1532. I do not wish to be understood to say that all the Pa- 
chacamac finds to be made, or made previously, are not post-Columbian, 
but the site where I caused the excavations to be made, and the depth 
at which the objects were taken out, point to the conclusion that my 
finds are indeed pre-Columbian, or at ]ea-t with very few exceptions 
only. The human foot, alone and in appearance amputated, is not 
rare among coast pottery, and the museum must have another one sent 
by me from Lambayeque, with its sandal and perfectly normal, as well 
as handsomely imitated in black clay. I remember having seen other 
specimens of the same description. But none of them were deformed, 
as the Pachacamac foot is. 
I have heard of the existence of leprosy on the Peruvian coast, but 
as isolated cases only, and have seen at the hacienda of Villa near 4 
Original Communications. 
Lima, one case of elephantiasis. The patient was a negro or mulatto- 
which, I can not recall. But the disease is certainly rare, and I have 
heard it mentioned as of recent origin, and even attributable to the im- 
portation of Chinese to Peru. Of ancient leprosy I have no knowl- 
edge, but would strongly recommend consulting Cieza de Leon and 
especially the book of Father Cobo, S. J., Ilistoria del Mundo Novo 
on the subject. I am here out of the world, so to say, in regard to 
documentary sources of information, and can only direct attention to 
such of them as my recollection points to as possibly bearing on the 
subject. At Lima, where I reside, I could tell more. In the Sierra 
there are a number of skin diseases (see Tschudi, Peru, 1842) that not 
infrequently result fatally by penetrating (so is the popular version 
and terminology) to the bone. Thus I have seen on the plateau of 
Cajamarca, and especially on the eastern slope of the Cordillera of 
northern Peru and beyond the Rio Maranon, in Chachapoyas, a dis- 
ease called uta, that is not incurable as long as it maintains a certain 
light character, but leaves indelible marks on the skin ; not only coffee- 
brown blotches, but the whole surface affected remains depressed there- 
after, even when healed. The people of these sections speak of a much 
worse kind of the same disease, one that gradually "eats skin, flesh, 
and bone," and which is regarded as incurable. I never saw a case of 
it, but my residence in the valleys between the Maranon and Iluallaga 
was not of long duration, and furthermore I have no knowledge of 
the science of medicine, nor of any of its particular branches. Descrip- 
tions also vary a great deal. In the hot regions of Bolivia, as Apolo- 
bamba and the Beni country, a skin disease known under the name 
of espundia exists. Isay skin disease, as thus it is qualified by the 
people. From descriptions it seems to be at least very similar to the 
uta. It is also fatal, at least sometimes. I am informed by a friend 
who has resided for a number of years at Cochabamba, in southern 
Bolivia, that leprosy exists there, or some disease which is called 
lepra by the inhabitants. I have not yet been able to inquire of 
members of the Bolivian faculty concerning such matters. 
Syphilis and related infirmities are common everywhere, and 
among Indians as well as among any other portion of the inhabitants. 
The disfigured faces on the pottery are generally regarded as repre- 
sentations of that disease, and I never heard leprosy mentioned in 
connection with them. In addition to the kind of vases representing 
such phenomena, other ones are found of a still more obscene charac- 
ter, and one of them I sent to the museum from Chan-Chan, showing 
man in connection with the llama. That all such ceramics are pre- 
Columbian can not positively be asserted, and I can not guarantee, foi Prof. BandelieVs Views on Huacos Pottery Deformations. 
5 
instance, that all the vases sent by me from Chimbote antedate the 
advent of Pizarro. But this much may safely be admitted, that the 
types of the designs are pre-Spanish, and that whichever vase be pos- 
terior to the occupation of Peru by Spaniards, is only an imitation of 
models in use long before, except, of course, such as show clearly 
European influence. In other words, the idea of copying on ceramics 
the effects of syphilitic affections upon human faces is without any 
doubt pre-Columbian in Peru, and was carried out on numerous speci- 
mens long before the white man ever landed on the Peruvian coast in 
the sixteenth century. 
After the organization of these countries under the laws of Spain, 
the natives did not change customs and art forthwith. The change 
came gradually. Thus the modes of burial of pre-Columbian times 
were still extensively practiced in the seventeenth century. Else, why 
the works of Arriaga on the Extirpation de la Idolattia, and of Villa- 
Gomez on the Exortation de la Idolatria, from about 1630. These 
highly important books describe a large number of aboriginal practices 
in vogue at that time. That even quite a number of vessels represent- 
ing syphilitic diseases should be post-Columbian is therefore only a 
proof of the fact that they are survivals of artistic ideas carried out 
long previous to the Columbian era, and that hence the disease existed 
in Peru untold centuries ago as -well as it exists to-day. 
I have not, as yet, seen any ceramics of the kind in the mountain 
regions, but this does not disprove their existence. Some may come 
to light unexpectedly, or may be known to others, whereas I have not 
learned of their existence. I would call your attention to the collec- 
tions lately sent by us to the museum from the islands and shores of 
the lake, which contain over a hundred skulls, etc., and among which 
you might perhaps also find some useful material. 
As we are on the point of leaving for the Illimani again, afterward 
to return to Lima for the summer, it would be useless to write to me 
here or any other point in Bolivia. A letter directed to me : " Casilla 
(letter box), No. 303 at Lima, Peru," is sure to reach me there. I 
have the honor to remain very respectfully yours, 
Ad. F. Bandelier. 
Permit me to call your attention to the possibility of the existence, 
on Peruvian vases, of representations of the mark of the " uta " on the 
arms, chest, and thighs of a human figure ; also on the faces. I do not 
recollect having seen any, but as the disease is also met with, though quite 
rarely, in valleys on the western slope of the Cordillera, it is not im- 
possible that it might have been copied. You might also bear in mind 6 
Original Communications. 
that the so-called verrugas exist in the upper part of the Rimae 
Valley, and that both of these affections, if copied in clay, can mislead 
as to the nature of the disease. Thus marks of the uta might be taken 
for leprosy when imperfectly copied. 
Again, let me call your attention to a number of ancient works on 
Peru, as possibly containing information : Acosta, Oviedo, the early 
reports on the first years of the conquest, like Xeres, Eztete, Hernando 
Pizarro, the somewhat later one of Pedro Pizarro, and even Gomara. 
In this letter the writer admits that verruga and uta may be rep- 
resented with syphilis. The following descriptions of the first two 
diseases I have taken from the Climatologie medicate of South Amer- 
ica, by Dr. Samuel Gache (Buenos Ayres, Marrieno Moreno, Calle Cor- 
riente, 829,1895): 
Verruga, which is called now Carrion malady, is endemic, and 
peculiar to Peru, where probably the Incas have known it. It acts 
principally in certain canons, like Huarochiri, Yanyos, and Canto. 
Tschudi made of it, in 1843, a description of which we reproduce sev- 
eral paragraphs, the more important: "In several of the valleys of 
the road which goes from the shore to the mountain, especially in the 
valley Surco, there are certain springs of which the Indians never 
drink the waters. When a _stranger approaches them to quench his 
thirst, people cry to him, ' It is verruga water I ' It is not even allowed 
to horses or to mules to refresh themselves in these springs, of which 
it is supposed the waters have the effect to produce this disease. As 
the existence of that evil is not known in any other country, there is 
apparent reason to believe that it has its origin in certain local circum- 
stances. The verrugas manifest themselves by pains in the throat, in 
the bones, and by various febrile symptoms. After a few days an 
eruption of verrugas appears on the body; they are of red hue, they 
develop themselves, and some of them attain the size of an egg. The 
blood flows off" in such abundance that the forces of the patient are 
exhausted and consumption supervenes. The little verrugas are those 
which produce the greater quantity of blood, and I have seen an Indian 
of middle race who had lost two litres. I can only connect this disease 
with the cause assigned by the Indians. In all the circumstances, it is 
certain that those who abstain from drinking the waters of the con- 
demned springs escape the verrugas, while those who have tasted 
these waters only once are attacked by the disease. The same fact 
shows itself with the mules and the horses. This affection is rampant 
in the village of Santa Olaya." {Discours lu par le Dr. David Matto, 
President de la Societe medicate, Union Fernandina, dans la seance 
du 5 octobre 1886i) Prof. Bandolier1 s Views on lluacos Pottery Deformations. 
7 
In 1858 Dr. Odriozola and Dr. Salazar, cited by Dr. Matto, under- 
took some studies on said disease, and arrived at this conclusion : That 
it recognizes a special principle as generator, and that the water of the 
springs situated on the west slope of the Andes serves as vehicle to it. 
They showed the seat of the verruga in the province of Huarochiri, 
especially in the village of Santa Olaya, and they gave a descrip- 
tion of it, recognizing two forms-one tuberculous, the other glob- 
ular. 
Some later works have advanced the knowledge of this subject, 
until, in 1873, Dr. Enrique C. Basadre pushed these studies a consider- 
able step forward in admitting that the verruga was produced by a 
special poison, probably telluric, and consisting of bacteria. Referring, 
himself, to the entity of this affection with the " fever of Oroya," he 
says: '' One knows that the travelers on the railroad of Oroya are at- 
tacked by a very grave fever, of a typhoid character, whose incubation 
is short, and which is probably no other than a grave form of the dis- 
ease of the verrugas, in which disease the eruption does not come to 
the point of producing itself." 
Later appeared new conquests. Puelma Tupper, in his thesis La 
Verruga Peruana (Berlin, 1879), and Izquierdo, who, in a work, Ez- 
guisomicetas de la Verruga Peruana, gives his opinion and condenses 
it in these words : " The vegetations of the verruga of Peru are con- 
junctive neoplasms which develop themselves always in the skin of the 
subcutaneous cellular tissue. From an anatomic point of view they 
differ completely from the common verrugas, and present a great 
analogy in structure with the sarcomas. There is also a variety of 
schizomycetes which exist in great numbers, as well in the interstices 
of the anatomic elements, cellular and fibrous, and also in the vessels 
which it obstructs completely. These same schizomycetes fill the arte- 
rial and venous capillaries of the sound skin, as well as of the subcu- 
taneous tissue, in the zone which is near the neoplastic vegetations. 
The bacterium in question presents itself under the form of a bacillus 
which measures from 8 to 12 /z in length, and exceptionally 20, and 
which is a little bigger than that of tuberculosis. The rods of medium 
dimension are provided with small eminences or nodosities, more ap- 
parent in the bacilli of large dimension " (Virchow's Archives}. 
According to Dr. Matto, until the moment when the workmen on 
the railroad of Oroya commenced, only the physicians of the hospitals 
had knowledge of an anemiant fever which attacked persons who at 
this time traveled in the canon of the Rimae, going up it. The negroes 
who carried the sacks of silver of the mountain of Pasco, in traversing 
the province of Huarochiri, returned sick to the hospital San Barthol- 8 
Original Communications. 
omew, with a continued fever, tenacious, which nothing could alleviate: 
fever anemiante, rebellious to all treatment, which followed its course 
in destroying the red corpuscles until it had killed the unfortunate 
whom it attacked, to the great despair of the physician, who in his 
ignorance could not render himself an account at the pillow of his 
patient of so grave a pyrexia. In the opinion of the physicians of this 
period, the negroes attacked by this affection became white, they died 
exsanguinated, and this fact made plain the state of anaemia character- 
istic of this disease. At the occasion of the building of the railroad ot 
Oroya the number of patients increased, and the hospitals of Lima and 
of Callao were filled with the victims of what was called " fever of 
Oroya," whose mortality was considerable. In searching for an ex- 
planation of its origin paludism occurred, and some attributed to it 
the special character of the fevers provoked by the digging up of 
the soils. 
In order to dissipate the doubts on the question whether the ver- 
ruga was infectious and inoculable, Daniel A. Carrion, a student of 
the sixth year, presented himself to an inoculation, which was practiced 
on him the 27th of August, 1885, by Dr. Evaristo M. Chaves, by means 
of blood which had just been extracted by scraping a verrugous tumor, 
of reddish color, situated on the right superciliary region of a patient 
of the service of Dr. Villar. In the course of the disease, experimen- 
tally determined, and which prolonged itself until the 5th of October,. 
Carrion presented the following symptoms: Twenty minutes after in- 
oculation there was produced a slight itching, tolerably sensible, fol- 
lowed by passing pains, which disappeared two hours later. Until the 
17th of September he felt nothing; on that day he felt during the 
evening a light malaise, and a pain in the left tibio-tarsal articulation; 
the next day the body collapsed. The 19th the 'malaise increased; 
cramps, nervous collapse, short and repeated chills, with chattering of 
the teeth, fever very high, pains general over the whole body, headache, 
pains in the thorax and in the abdominal parietes, sleeplessness, diar- 
rhoea ; temperature, 39'4° C. ; urine red, black, sedimentous, and 
scanty. 
The patient continued in these conditions until the 24th, when he 
appeared a little relieved as to all these symptoms. Afterward sweat- 
ings presented themselves, pains in the eyes and in the articulations, 
considerable pallor of the skin and mucous membranes, pulse feeble 
and frequent, faint and soft murmur at the base of the heart (with the 
first sound), respiration normal, anorexia, great feebleness, profound 
and intermittent pain in the right hypochondrium, swelling of liver, 
vomiting, vertigo, eyes dark-ringed, haggard face, cheeks and temples Prof. Bandolier's Views on Iluacos Pottery Deformations. 
9 
entirely sunken, discolored mucosa, urine scanty and desire to urinate 
frequent, loss of memory, on some occasions extreme agitation, pain in 
the epigastrium and in the precordial and sacral regions. The patient 
continued thus until October 3d. The morning of that day he de- 
clared that he felt better, but his state was the following: Sleepless- 
ness, voice difficult, slow, and sometimes extinguished, respiration ir- 
regular, skin dry and cold, picking at the bedclothes and bowel incon- 
tinence, incontinence of urine, which is abundant. Dr. Flores examined 
with the microscope the blood of the patient, and observed that the red 
globules were deformed, and their number was 1,085,000 per cubic 
millimetre; the white corpuscles were numerically augmented in pro- 
portion to the haematics. In this state it was decided to practice trans- 
fusion of blood, an operation which was postponed. The next day the 
intelligence is enfeebled and is almost completely lost. The 5th, at 
nine o'clock in the evening, the patient went into coma; the pupils 
dilated, pulse threadlike and hardly perceptible; tracheal rale. At 
11.15 he expired. 
M. Alcedan, to whom we are indebted for all these details, pro- 
posed, at a public demonstration in honor of this noble victim of the 
love of science, to give to the verruga the name of Carrion disease. 
In consequence of these experimental studies, consecrated by the 
termination of the observation made upon that intrepid martyr of sci- 
ence, Dr. L. Avendano has arrived at the following conclusions: 
1. Verruga must be considered as a zymotic disease of the telluric 
group, beside malaria, cholera, yellow fever, etc., and as such one must 
believe by analogy in the existence of a special micro-organism which 
produces it. 
2. It is inoculable-that is, transmissible from man to man ; how- 
ever, there are not reasons enough for saying that it is contagious. 
3. The morbid state known by our physicians under the erroneous 
name of fever of Oroya is not a distinct morbid entity, but only the 
febrile period which precedes, in the grave cases, the eruption of the 
dermatosis, which never completes itself before death supervenes, as a 
consequence of profound trouble of the organism by the complete 
alteration of the blood upon which the germ productor of the disease 
principally exercisesits action. 
Lupus, known under the name of uta-a name which comes from 
the corruption of the Quechua expression uza (which signifies louse)- 
is endemic in Lima, Jaso, Andamarca, Ayacucho, Malvas, Tingo, 
Marcara, Pampas, Cataparaco, and other departments of the interior. 
Orrego describes it thus : The uta is a disagreeable wound which 
develops itself at certain periods of the year and in the valleys where 10 
Original Communications. 
one meets certain venomous insects. It is of two kinds-one is aquatic 
and of short duration, the other is dry. 
Dr. Ugaz has made of it a special study, and as a result of his ex- 
perimental and clinical studies lie says that uta lias for its cause the 
bacillus of tuberculosis; the cutaneous and pulmonary progress is 
identical, and presents no other difference but the vital importance of 
the integument interested. 
Speaking of the manner in which it behaves in the organism, he 
adds: In this insensible ulceration, without pain, mostly neglected, the 
micro-organism has multiplied and metamorphosed itself in silence; it 
has established a colony which, after vegetating long months and com- 
promising the nearest tissues, continues by forming a new tubercle, 
then several others which, once united, constitute the variety of the 
lupus hypertrophica (dry uta); when they have grown up, they gain 
the vascular lymphatic ways, always free to provoke the same process 
from distance to distance, like the beads of a rosary {lupus serpiginoso); 
finally arrives the hour of regression, the adult inhabitants of a colonial 
group die, and their spoils are taken off with an albuminous, sanguino- 
lent liquid in order to characterize the third form {uta aguadd), lupus 
ulcerosa. 
If they are not stopped in their march they continue to conquer 
territories more and more important for life, until the auto-infection 
transforms the man into an ambulant, redoubtable focus of millions of 
pathogenic beings (general tuberculosis). 
Ugaz presents the following deductions and observations from his 
works: 
1. The uta of Peru is a bacillary tuberculosis localized generally 
in the parts of the skin which are uncovered. 
2. It is endemic in certain canons of both slooes of the Andes. 
3. Its genesis is subordinate to the meteorological conditions by 
the physical and mechanical causes which insure the epitheliums; its 
evolution depends on the dispositions-diathetic and anatomo-physio- 
logical-of the individual. 
4. Its treatment is endermic or surgical only. 
Dr. Villar believes that, although from a point of view anatomo- 
physiologic there is identity between tuberculosis and lupus, consider- 
ing that on both sides the original element is the bacillus of Koch, and 
that the inoculation of the lupous substance produces tuberculosis, one 
must yet take into account the fact that the lupus is endemic in cer- 
tain regions of the mountain where pulmonary tuberculosis is very 
rare, and even does not exist, in the regions where the consumptives 
come from the coast to recuperate their health; that lupus seems to Prof. BandelieAs Views on ILuacos Pottery Deformations. 
11 
be produced by a local cause which, following a general belief, is the 
inoculation of the poisonous secretion of a spider (uta 6 tac-arana} 
which settles itself upon the uncovered parts of the body like the face; 
that the lupous one is not tuberculous; that for lupus alone the treat- 
ment consists in every period in the application of local means, like 
cauterization ; that, softened and infiltrated, it does not acquire the 
qualities of an inoculated tuberculosis. (Discourse of Dr. Villar 
en prenant la presidence de V Academia National de ALedicina 
de Lima.}