The Las Hurdes region was remote, poor and isolated. The poor diet and general lack of hygiene meant that goiter, pellagra, parasitic worms and other, sometimes repulsive, diseases were common. Many of the local inhabitants ("hurdanos") were also suffering from birth defects owing to inbreeding. Livestock illnesses were also widespread. The conditions in the households were unsanitary and, according to visitors, the stench and the misery were overwhelming. The name of the region is believed to derive from the Latin "gurdus", a word of Iberian substrate origin meaning "doltish, stupid."