Fever, colic, coughs, rheumatism, and sore and inflamed eyes, are not unfrequent ailments. Syphilis also occurs, and has probably been introduced by the traders, or by the Nicobarese who have visited Calcutta and Moulmein in their vessels. Itch (_tinea circinata tropica_) is in some localities very prevalent among the natives, who are also liable to attacks of a mild form of elephantiasis throughout the Archipelago. It is said that in Chaura from one-third to one-half the population are so diseased in one way or the other. Cases of yaws occur from time to time among children. Eno's fruit salt, camphor, castor-oil, turpentine, and quinine, are the principal features of the Nicobarese pharmacopoeia. Eno's fruit salt mixed with water, with a little powdered camphor and turpentine added, is given twice a day for colic. For fever, a little quinine is added to the same mixture. Sandalwood and jessamine oil are held in great repute as aphrodisiacs, and are purchased from the Burmese traders in small quantities at a very high price. Faith, however, is not always placed in the efficacy of mundane remedies. A woman who had been ill for a year, when asked if she would take medicine, replied, "The devil has caused this illness, and it cannot be cured by medicine. Only the _tamiluanas_ can cure me by driving the devil out of me." She preferred sugar and biscuits to drugs. Malaria, which is perhaps the indisposition by which they are most frequently attacked, is always attributed to demonic agency. * * * * * Marriage amongst the Nicobarese is of a class that is considered to be a modification of the matriarchal system, and that exists widely spread in this portion of the world amongst the Malayan and Indo-Chinese peoples. Until he marries, a man considers himself a member of his father's household, but after that event he calls himself the son of his father-in-law, and becomes a member of his wife's family, leaving the house of his own parents, or even his village, if the woman dwell elsewhere.[158] Only the chiefs, or wealthy men whose positions in the village are of influence, are exceptions to this law; they are permitted by custom to bring their wives to their own houses.[159] There is no law of exogamy amongst them--a man marries in his own village, village-group, or even house; for although connections between blood relatives are disapproved of, there is nothing to prevent such taking place, except public opinion, which may often be disregarded with impunity. The woman on her marriage brings no special dower into the partnership, neither is there any custom by which the man is compelled to place a certain amount of property at the disposal of her parents. Each has a right to a certain proportion of their common household possessions, and their worldly status improves by inheritance and by their own efforts.