We'll See Your Bird Flu and Raise You . . .

Cocolitzli.

That's what the Aztecs (who called themselves "Tenochca", by the way ) called a terrifying disease that killed as many as two million of them around 1575. It wasn't small pox (which they called "zahuatl", by the way) and its reported symptoms don't match typhus, the other candidate for a Spanish-borne disease thought to have wiped out the Tenochca.

No, modern epidemiological research indicates that cocoltzli is a native son (or daughter) and most likely a hemorrhagic fever, cousin to Ebola, Marburg and Lassa.; swift, violent killers with no known treatment.

What does this mean ? For history, that maybe the Spanish, whose general treatment of the Tenochca entitles them to guilt and punishment without end, may be excused of liability for that last terminal plague.

For today, it means that cocoltzli (or something else very like it) may still be around. Around Mexico and around here. The Hanta virus outbreak in the Southwest a few years ago ? Another hemorrhagic fever. The trigger for that outbreak ? An exploding rodent population when rain followed a long drought. The same drought/rain combo that preceded the two known cocoltzli outbreaks in Mexico.

The weather guessers say that our Southwest is entering a period of prolonged drought. But the rains will come again.

Read it all in Discover magazine, stay healthy and

Stay Naked.