ation, which to scratch is
dangerous. In Native nurseries I have seen applications used of pounded
sandal-wood, camphor, and rose-water; with the peasantry a cooling earth,
called mooltanie mittee,[14] similar to our fuller's-earth, is moistened
with water and plastered over the back and stomach, or wherever the rash
mostly prevails; all this is but a temporary relief, for as soon as it is
dry, the irritation and burning are as bad as ever.

The best remedy I have met with, beyond patient endurance of the evil, is
bathing in rain-water, which soothes the violent sensations, and
eventually cools the body. Those people who indulge most in the good
things of this life are the greatest sufferers by this annual attack. The
benefits attending temperance are sure to bring an ample reward to the
possessors of that virtue under all circumstances, but in India more
particularly; I have invariably observed the most abstemious people are
the least subject to attacks from the prevailing complaints of the country,
whether fever or cholera, and when attacked the most likely subjects to
recover from those alarming disorders.

At this moment of anxious solicitude throughout Europe, when that awful
malady, the cholera, is spreading from city to city with rapid strides,
the observations I have been enabled to make by personal acquaintance with
afflicted subjects in India, may be acceptable to my readers; although I
heartily pray our Heavenly Father may in His goodness and mercy preserve
our country from that awful calamity, which has been so generally fatal in
other parts of the world.

The Natives of India designate cholera by the word 'Hyza', which with them
signifies 'the plague'. By this term, however, they do not mean that
direful disorder so well known to us by the same appellation; as, if I
except the Mussulmaun pilgrims, who have seen, felt, and described its
ravages on their journey to Mecca, that complaint seems to be unknown to
the present race of Native inhabitants of Hindoostaun. The word 'hyza', or
'plague', would be applied by them to all complaints of an epidemic or
contagious nature by which the population were suddenly attacked, and
death ensued. When the cholera first appeared in India (which I believe
was in 1817), it was considered by the Natives a new complaint.[15]

In all cases of irritation of the stomach, disordered bowels, or severe
feverish symptoms, the Mussulmaun doctors strongly urge the adoption of
'star