tamarind-tree, are all highly efteemed for the fame excellent quality.* For that moft dreadful of diseases, but fo common in Eastern countries, the elephantiafis, the ancient Indians found out a fovereign cure in administering arfenic in confiderable quantities. The genuine prescription is, happily for the curiofity of pofterity, preferved in the Afiatic Researches, and is faid to have been an old fecret of the Hindoo physicians, who applied it also to the cure of cold and moift diftempers, as the palfy, distortions of the face, relaxation of the nerves, and fimilar diseases its efficacy too has been proved by long experience; and this is the method of preparing it: 1 "Take of white arfenic, fine and fresh, one tola; of picked black pepper fix times as much; let both be well beaten at intervals, for four days fucceflively, in an iron mortar, and then reduced to an impalpable powder in one of stone, with a stone pestle, and, thus completely levigated, a little water being mixed with them, make pills of them as large as tares or small pulfe, and keep them dry in a fhady place. "One of thofe pills must be fwallowed morning and evening with fome betel-leaf, or, in countries where betel is not at hand, with cold water! If the body be cleanfed from foulness and obftructions by gentle cathartics and bleeding before the medicine is administered, the remedy will be the fpeedier."* The next article in the fame volume ought not to be omitted in this account of Indian medicine; it has relation to the bite of ferpents, particularly that moft fatal one of the Cobra de Capello, and the demonftrated cure is from forty to fixty drops of volatile cauftic alkali fpirit diluted with water, or, if that be not at hand, a rather larger portion of eau de luce, which is to be had every where. The inventor of this valuable medicine is Mr. Williams, a Bengal practitioner. The cafes fell under his perfonal obfervation; and, for his public communication of it, that gentleman deserves the thanks of every perfon, native and foreign, in the whole extent of India. • Afiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 149. The The arfenic pills above-mentioned are alfo faid, I prefume from the proximity of that mineral to mercury, to be a fovereign cure for the Perfian fire, as they there call the lues venerea: and here I find it neceffary to remark, that, upon whatever treatife, concerning the diseases of India, we caft our eyes, we are certain to read of the ravages of this fatal diforder, which feems to have reigned for immemorial ages in that country; and, owing to the unhappy rejection of European aid by the inhabitants, from fuperftitious motives, and a rooted prejudice in favour of their own abfurd method of treatment, to have taken wide and deep root in it, and to have cut them off annually by thousands. In proof of thefe rooted fuperftitions and obftinate prejudices of the Hindoos, just mentioned as the indubitable cause of such dreadful calamities to them, may be adduced the following inftance inferted in the Sketches of Mr. Crauford, who writes from perfonal knowledge. "One of the natives, who was employed in an eminent post at an English settlement, being prevailed on in a dangerous illness to receive a vifit from an European doctor, it was was found that, by long abstinence, which in fickness the Hindoos often carry to excess, the ftomach would no longer retain any thing. The disorder being of a putrid kind, the doctor wished to give the bark in ftrong wine; but the Hindoo pofitively refused to take it, notwithstanding many arguments that were used both by the doctor and the governor who accompanied him, and who had a confiderable degree of influence over the Hindoo. They promised that it fhould remain an inviolable fecret; but he replied with great calmness, that he could not conceal it from himself, and a few days afterwards fell a victim to his perseverance."* Most of the children of the inferior cafts are faid to come into the world with the virus of this dreadful malady latent in their blood, and the most terrible evils refult from it in future life. Medicines that can only palliate the fymptoms, but have not efficacy to exterminate the feeds of it, are made use of, and the tortured patient lingers through a miferable life, and dies at last of the elephantiafis. The public institution of * Sketches of the Hindoos, p. 306. + Sonnerat, vol, ii. p. 146. Dancing Dancing Girls, an authorized system of proftitution that reflects eternal dishonour on the policy of the country, has probably been the baneful fource of this national calamity. From the fame fatal causes, ignorance and fuperftition, added to a burning climate, the fmall-pox, when it appears, is said to spread terrible devastation through their great towns and villages. The principles of their religion forbid the use of inoculation; they make no diftinction in their treatment between the confluent and the refluent kind. Every thing is left to diet drinks and fuperftitious antidotes; the patient is sprinkled with the ashes of cow-dung; anointed with cocoa-nut oil; and finally bathed in cold water, which generally terminates his exiftence.* Sonnerat records a fingular cure among them for the epilepfy, which is eating of rooks. In cutaneous diforders, which are fuppofed to proceed from worms, unguents and cataplafms are feldom applied, the omnipotent cauftic removes at once the skin and the worm that corrodes it. For diforders produced by cold, the hottest in Sonnerat, vol. ii. p. 146. ternal |