OVIEDO, a city of Spain, in the province of Asturias, of which it is the capital. It is situated between the rivers Nalon and Nora, on a hill of granite, and enjoys a serene atmosphere, although generally rather rainy. Its fields are fertile, and yield abundance of fruits and horticultural vegetables; and near it there are good meadows, where cattle are depastured, and hay made for the winter consumption of stock. The city contains a population of 6000 inhabitants, amongst whom there are some of the most distinguished families of the province, who unfortunately prefer a residence in cities to living on their own estates. It is not a place of trade, but rather the resort of lawyers and clergy. It has a very magnificent cathedral in the Gothic style, with a remarkable lofty tower, an university, a well-endowed hospital, and a beautiful public walk. It is supplied with water by a fine aqueduct, which conveys it from two fountains in the neighbouring hills. Long. 5. 56. 22. W. Lat. 43. 21. 55. N.

Oviedo, John Gonsales, in Spanish, Gonçalo Herman-dez de Oviedo y Valdez, a celebrated historian, was born at Madrid about the year 1478, and educated amongst the pages of Ferdinand and Isabella. Oviedo had attained the age of fifteen when Christopher Columbus returned from his first voyage; and being seized with a strong desire to learn the details relating to the great discovery of the illustrious[7:16:681] navigator, he soon made himself acquainted with all that had passed in this wonderful expedition. Having embraced the profession of arms, he distinguished himself in the war of Naples, where he rendered important service to Spain; and it was in recompense of his talents and bravery that Ferdinand appointed him director of the gold and silver mines in the island of Haïti, which Columbus named first Espanola·, and then San-Domingo. Oviedo proceeded to his destination in 1513; and employed in working the mines, which were poor compared with those afterwards discovered in the continent of America, the natives of the island, a good and gentle race, naturally indolent, and by no means robust, with constitutions already enfeebled by the ravages of syphilis, a disease previously unknown in the old world. This unfortunate people, who had received the companions of Columbus with so much cordiality, Oviedo treated worse than beasts of burden; compelling them to labour without intermission, and exercising the greatest cruelties to enforce submission to his commands on the part of a race which had previously lived in idleness, subsisting on the abundant natural productions of the climate, and on fish, which they caught without difficulty, as an amusement rather than an occupation. The abominable tyranny to which the natives were thus subjected soon caused a considerable diminution of their number; and Oviedo, in order to justify himself for the oppression and cruelty which he exercised, had the bad faith to allege, in his writings, that the Haitians were dissolute, unprincipled, and in every respect deserving of extermination. Nor was this all. Not content with calumniating the people he had so cruelly treated, he added the ridiculous falsehood, that amongst them syphilis was the result of debauchery; whereas, according to the testimony of all impartial historians, it had been ascertained by Columbus that the Haitian people were comparatively indifferent to sexual pleasure, a circumstance by no means common in a burning climate, and which can only be explained by the weak physical organization of these islanders, or by a deficiency of vital power. A residence of nearly twelve years in Haïti enabled Oviedo to study the natural history of the island in all its parts, to observe syphilis in all its types, and to ascertain the remedies which the natives employed in their treatment of the disease. The principal of these was the gaiae, which is still classed amongst die number of the antisyphilitics. On his return to Spain in 1525, Oviedo published a journal of his researches under the title of Summario de la Historia General y Natural de las Indias Occidentales, Toledo, one vol. folio, dedicated to Charles V. At a later period, however, the author recast this production, to which he added numerous facts connected with the natural history of Haiti, and, in 1535, he published the first twenty books of his great work entitled La Historia General y Natural de las Indias Occidentales; but the entire work, which is divided into fifty books, did not appear till 1783, when it came out under the auspices of the Marquis of Truxillo. Oviedo affirms, in his narrative, that the syphilis is an endemic malady in the island of Haïti, and that having been contracted there by the Spaniards belonging to the expedition of Columbus, it was by them communicated to the Neapolitans belonging to the expedition of Gonealvo de Cordova; and, in point of fact, the syphilis appeared at Naples immediately after the return of the squadron of Gonçalvo. Several writers, who pretend that syphilis existed in Europe anterior to the discovery of the new world, have attempted to prove this hy-ιothetical assertion from the writings of Oviedo himself; ĭut these, so far from countenancing any sueb notion, con-ainineontestible proof of the error into which those persons ιave fallen who ascribe the origin of this fearful scourge to he old continent. Some authors assure us that Oviedo, having been infected by syphilis during his sojourn at Naples about the year 1513, came to the conclusion that if had been imported from Haïti; and conceiving that there must exist in that island a remedy for the disease, solicited the employment which led him thither, and in fact discovered that the wood of gaiac was the infallible antidote employed by the natives, and by which also he effected his own cure. It is added that, on his return to Spain, Oviedo commenced physician for syphilitic maladies, in the treatment of which he made use of the wood of gaïac, with a success which considerably augmented the fortune he had acquired in working the mines of Haiti, at the expense of the lives of a great number of the natives. (a.)