7 AUGUST 1841, Page 17

DR. McCOSH'S MEDICAL ADVICE TO THE INDIAN STRANGER.

THE germ of this volume was a thesis, which Mr. M‘Cosif wrote for the University of Edinburgh when he became ambitious of adding M.D. to his name. Determining on publication, he seems to have made considerable additions to it ; at least we can in no other way account for the variety of matters beyond the promise of the titlepage. Besides a good deal of " Medical Advice to the Indian Stranger," and general remarks upon the climate and proximate causes of diseases in India, Dr. 1■I'Cosx's little volume teems with a variety of curious and practical information, always freshly gathered by original observation, if not always positively new. In some ninety short chapters, more like the capita of a classic than the so-called divisions of a modern book, our author lays open the pay, promotion, and causes of complaint (there seem to be few of congratulation) of the medical service in India; their duties at the Presidency or the Stations ; the diseases, character, and conduct of their patients—not omitting the paucity of fees when private indi- viduals call upon them for services; together with slight notices of the places of resort for Indian invalids, from the Himalaya to Van Diemen's Land, from the Cape to Canton ; Europe never being selected but as a last resource, since pay greatly diminishes and time ceases to be reckoned for the Anglo-Indian who returns home. Besides these things, which only come home to the business and bosoms of persons in the service, there is a variety of general infor- mation, of great utility to persons going to India, together with many incidental sketches of scenery, and manners and morals. Although such a number of topics as Dr. M'Cosa handles in a small space would seem to be productive of a hodgepodge, such is not the case, from each subject being treated under a separate head. Nor are any tedious, from most of them being short, and dealing only with the results of many years' varied experience, some passed in rather wild districts. In a literary point of view, Medical Advice to the Indian Stranger is not a striking, but it is a solid work. The composition is plain, close, and frequently vigor- ous; and although Dr. M'Cosn's style is somewhat literal, the force of the writing, the novelty of the images, and the tact with which the most striking points are selected, prevent that heaviness which generally accompanies the literal manner of composition. Here is an example, in

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ON THE GANGES.

Every thing is strange to him : groves of palm-trees meet his eye on every hand; he sees the foot-prints of the tiger upon the mud deposited by the last high tide ; jackalls meet him on his walk, and hardly move out of his track ; and monkies mimic the cries of dying innocence in the adjoining copse : he sees the alligator basking upon the sand-bank like a log of wood; vultures and adjutants flapping each other with their wings as they float by him rafted on a dead Hindoo; vampire-bats skim silently through the evening air in search of prey ; fire-flies glimmer and gyrate among the blossom-laden forest-trees; his ear is assailed and stunned by the noise, the buzz, and hum, and hiss, and clatter of ten thousand insects. The native tomtom sounds from the bazaar of a neighbouring village. The houses are mere wigwams, shrouded in most luxuriant vegetation. The people are almost naked, or clothed in muslin robes, with silver rings upon their ankles and their arms, their fingers add their toes, and golden ornaments in their ears and their noses. • He is agreeably surprised to find them so fair ; and more so to find them more handsome and. with more regular and finer-turned features than his own countrymen; grace- ful in their gait, easy and polite in their manners, and in their intercourse highly polished and civilized; speaking an unknown language, and yet mating themselves understood; kneeling in prayer along the highways, regardless of the turmoil m mind them, or pouring out libations into the sacred stream.

`STABLISTIMENT OF AN ASSISTANT-SURGEON.

He will find \ necessary to keep the following servants—one bearer or foot- man, at seven rupees a month ; one kidmutgar, or table-attendant, at eight rupees; one mussalchee, at four rupees; one washerman, at six rupees; one sweeper, at four ; one water-carrier, at four rupees. If he keep a palanquin., that will cost him thirty rupees a month more; but few do that, as they can hire one at so much a day when wanted. Though this is the smallest possible establishment of servants, it will no doubt appear a great deal ; but the curse of caste renders such unavoidable. Every man has his particular duty, to which he adheres most religiously. One man will brush boots and shoes, but would not remove a plate from the table though threatened with a drawn sword : he who removes a plate from the table would scorn to wash it; and he who cleans knives and forks would think it an unpardonable outrage to ba asked to sweep the floor. After all, an establishment of servants is cheaper than in Europe : they are generally honest in the weightier matters of the law; but most of them will cheat a little, and not be satisfied unless they pocket six or eight per cent, of all the money; that passes through their hands. However absurd and inconvenient their prejudices may be, the European will do well not to interfere with them, as he will be a loser in the end, both of temper and time and money also.

The medical remarks scattered through the volume are not of a professional or technical character ; dealing for the most part with ascertained facts, or deductions from acknowledged principles. Here is

A CHAPTER OF FACTS ON MALARIA.

It' is a generally-received opinion that the greater proportion of diseases with which the natives are affected are the consequence of malaria generated in the decomposition of vegetable matter : indeed no fact is better ascertained, than that a certain quality, whether a gas or a vapour, a film or an impalpable powder, is evolved by vegetables exposed to heat and moisture, and undergoing the process of putrefaction which has the property of engendering fever is hen brought in contact with the body. This miasma is generated in greater quan- tity in autumn and spring than during other seasons of the year; is more potent at full and new moon than at other periods, and more active between sunset and ten o'clock than during the rest of the day. Miasma seems to pos- sess gravity, for people that sleep on the ground-floor are more frequently at- tacked with fever than those who live in the upper stories ; and some European cultivators preserve their health in the Sunderbunds of the Ganges merely by living in lofty houses, whereas if they slept in the lower story they would suffer very severely, or die of fever. Misasma is capable of being dissipated by heat ; a moist atmosphere is more favourable for its action than a dry one, and a person may sleep in a marsh with comparative impunity, if he sleeps beside a watch-fire. Miasma is ao- tuated by the same laws that actuate the atmosphere, and may be conveyed by the wind to a considerable distance, with its properties unimpaired. A ship may anchor a mile distant to windward of a marshy island with impunity, but if she anchor the same distance to leeward she will in all likelihood be attacked by disease. An army may encamp with impunity on the sea-shore of a pestilen- tial island during one monsoon and while the wind is from the sea, but if the monsoon change and the wind from the interior blow over the camp they are certain of being attacked. Miasma loses it property of producing fever in its pro- gress on the wind, as if it became too touch diluted to take effect ; and a town may be situated five or six miles to leeward of a marsh and not be subject to fever, whereas, if situated within one mile, it may have many. People constantly exposed to malaria become inured to it, and enjoy comparatively good health where a new-comer would suffer. The Garrows, one of the hill-tribes of India, arc the most powerful, athletic race of men I have ever seen in India ; yet they inhabit a country into the interior of which no European could penetrate without the certainty of a most dangerous fever. In some parts of South America, when a slave makes his escape from bondage, he finds a safe asylum in some noted malarial jungle, well knowing that his master would follow him thither at his risk of his life, and would rather lose his slave than attempt to

pursue him. •

In most cantonments in India there are certain marked houses, known from their unhealthiness, and these are generally waste, or only occupied for a month or so by strangers. There are generally some good grounds for the reputed cha- racter they bear ; and though it be a popular opinion, it is, perhaps, the safest plan to retain it. The state of sleeping or waking materially affects the dis- position to miasmata. A person may be exposed when awake to miasma and not suffer, but is much more predisposed to an attack if he is exposed to it asleep ; as if the guardian that protected the constitution %%Idle awake, went to sleep along with its master, leaving him unprotected. Hence the danger of sleeping in a marsh ; nevertheless, a man may even sleep in a marsh with less harm, if he take the precaution of tying a gauze veil over his face. Hence an advantage of the native mode of sleeping with the head wrapped up in a cloth, which no doubt saves them from many an ague.

The following passage is rather striking as a picture of pestilence in a camp, and curious from the closing facts ; the interence from which seems to be that cholera, like some nervous disorders, may be driven away by active exertion, or induced by mental stagna- tion—unless some occult malaria was in action.

CHOLERA IN CAMP.

The first time I saw cholera as an epidemic, was in the campaign against the Chooars, in 1832. Soon after leaving Barrackpore, in November, It showed itself in the camp to which I was attached. For nearly a month it assumed the sporadic form, selecting for its victims the camp-followers and the weaker Sepoys only. Though a good many of those attacked were carried off, still it did not excite much alarm ; and we hoped, by constant change of ground, and the cold weather increasing, to leave it somewhere behind. However, after we had penetrated about twelve marches into the interior of the enemy's country, it burst out at Luckipore with all the violence of an epidemic, and raged for several days with most appalling mortality. The hospital became crowded to excess; two, three, or tour poor fellows were carried in every hour ; and 90 rapid was the progress of the disease, that many died a few hours after they were attacked. Many of the followers, rather than run the risk of living longer in camp, fled into the forests, and attempted to find their way home; running the risk of meeting upon their path the numerous beasts of prey, and the enemy, as savage as merciless, and still more dangerous than the wild beasts, funeral piles through many a weary mile. The retching of those attacked, the groans of 1 Mr. LANE'S acquirements and abilities that he has not amply per.

the dy log, and the lamentations for the dead, occupied the ear incessantly

night and day; graves were seen digging di n every direction, and smoking all around, tainting the very atmosphere with human empyreu- matic odour. Flocks of kites and vultures hovered over the dismal scene, screaming to be deprived of their expected prey. Troops of jackalls prowled about at night, tearing open and robbing the newly-tenanted graves ; and the short hoarse bark of the hymns, like a knell from a death's-head, grated upon the startled ear, warning us of our mortality, and of his perhaps groping for our bones before another day's dawn. Public religious processions were fre- quently performed by the natives, each caste separate by itself, with all the noisy solemnity characteristic of Hiudoo and Mussulman rites, the one trying to outdo the other in their supplications to their favourite deities to abate the dreadful calamity ; and, to complete the tragical scene, the savage enemy, apparently exempt from the disease, looked on composedly from the skirts of the jungle, ready to impale with their arrows any one who ventured beyond the piquets, and anticipating our extermination without any efforts of theirs to assist.

When things were in this condition, we broke ground, marched two days in succession, and halted at Boonga. We had not a case of cholera after leaving Luckipore. It is pretty well ascertained, though not easily accounted for, that if cholera break out in camp, and that came be broken up into parties, the chances are that the greater number of parties will be exempt. This was strikingly exemplified in two companies of the Thirty-fourth Native Infantry that were detached ; they had not a case of cholera after, though it continued with the head-quarters. The number of deaths on this occasion amounted to about seventy ; about three-fourths of these were camp-followers. Most provi• dentially, not a European officer was attacked ; such is the caprice of this awful disorder.

Such, rather, are the advantages of good clothing and good living, with intelligence to see the necessity of precautions, and means to be able to take them.