the frequent application of the golinggang or daun kurap
(Cassia alata) and such other herbs as are used to cure the ringworm, and
sometimes by rubbing gunpowder and strong acids to his skin; but it
always returned after some time. The other species with which the country
people are in some instances affected is doubtless, from the description
given of its dreadful symptoms, that severe kind of leprosy which has
been termed elephantiasis, and is particularly described in the Asiatic
Researches Volume 2, the skin coming off in flakes, and the flesh falling
from the bones, as in the lues venerea. This disorder being esteemed
highly infectious, the unhappy wretch who labours under it is driven from
the village he belonged to into the woods, where victuals are left for
him from time to time by his relations. A prang and a knife are likewise
delivered to him, that he may build himself a hut, which is generally
erected near to some river or lake, continual bathing being supposed to
have some effect in removing the disorder, or alleviating the misery of
the patient. Few instances of recovery have been known. There is a
disease called the nambi which bears some affinity to this, attacking the
feet chiefly, the flesh of which it eats away. As none but the lowest
class of people seem to suffer from this complaint I imagine it proceeds
in a great degree from want of cleanliness.

SMALLPOX.

The smallpox (katumbuhan) sometimes visits the island and makes terrible
ravages. It is regarded as a plague, and drives from the country
thousands whom the infection spares. Their method of stopping its
progress (for they do not attempt a cure) is by converting into a
hospital or receptacle for the rest that village where lie the greatest
number of sick, whither they send all who are attacked by the disorder
from the country round. The most effectual methods are pursued to prevent
any person's escape from this village, which is burnt to the ground as
soon as the infection has spent itself or devoured all the victims thus
offered to it. Inoculation was an idea long unthought of, and, as it
could not be universal, it was held to be a dangerous experiment for
Europeans to introduce it partially, in a country where the disorder
makes its appearance at distant intervals only, unless those periods
could be seized and the attempts made when and where there might be
well-founded apprehension of its being communicated in the natural way.
Such an oppor