Observations on the Mussulmauns of India: Descriptive of Their Manners, Customs, Habits and Religious Opinions Made During a Twelve Years' Residence in Their Immediate SocietyMeer Hasan Ali, Mrs.
Islamic
Observations on the Mussulmauns of India: Descriptive of Their Manners, Customs, Habits and Religious Opinions Made During a Twelve Years' Residence in Their Immediate Society
Meer Hasan Ali, Mrs.
India -- Social life and customs; Muslims -- India
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
'starving out the complaint'. This has become a law of Nature with all the
sensible part of the community; and when the cholera first made its
appearance in the Upper Provinces of Hindoostaun, those Natives who
observed their prescribed temperance were, when attacked, most generally
preserved from the fatal consequences of the disorder.
On the very first symptom of cholera occurring in a member of a Mussulmaun
family, a small portion of zahur morah[16] (derived from zahur, poison;
morah, to kill or destroy, and thence understood as an antidote to poison,
some specimens of which I have brought with me to England) moistened with
rosewater, is promptly administered, and, if necessary, repeated at short
intervals; due care being taken to prevent the patient from receiving
anything into the stomach, excepting rosewater, the older the more
efficacious in its property to remove the malady. Wherever zahur morah was
not available, secun-gebeen[17] (syrup of vinegar) was administered with
much the same effect. The person once attacked, although the symptoms
should have subsided by this application, is rigidly deprived of
nourishment for two or three days, and even longer if deemed expedient;
occasionally allowing only a small quantity of rose-water, which they say
effectually removes from the stomach and bowels those corrupt adhesions
which, in their opinion, is the primary cause of the complaint.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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