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 cholera, I observed, seldom attacked abstemious people; when, however,
this was the case, it generally followed a full meal; whether of rice or
bread made but little difference, much I believe depending on the general
habit of the subject; as among the peasantry and their superiors the
complaint raged with equal malignity, wherever a second meal was resorted
to whilst the person had reason to believe the former one had not been
well digested. An instance of this occurred under my own immediate
observation in a woman, the wife of an old and favourite servant. She had
imprudently eaten a second dinner, before her stomach, by her own account,
had digested the preceding meal. She was not a strong woman, but in
tolerable good health; and but a few hours previous to the attack I saw
her in excellent spirits, without the most remote appearance of
indisposition. The usual applications failed of success, and she died in a
few hours. This poor woman never could be persuaded to abstain from food
at the stated period of meals; and the Natives were disposed to conclude
that this had been the actual cause of her sufferings and dissolution.
In 1821 the cholera raged with even greater violence than on its first
appearance in Hindoostaun; by that time many remedies had been suggested,
through the medium of the press, by the philanthropy and skill of European
medical practitioners, the chief of whom recommended calomel in large
doses, from twenty to thirty grains, and opium proportioned to the age and
strength of the patient. I never found the Natives, however, willing to
accept this as a remedy, but I have heard that amongst Europeans it was
practised with success. From a paragraph which I read in the Bengal papers,
I prepared a mixture that I have reason to think, through the goodness of
Divine Providence, was beneficial to many poor people who applied for it
in the early stages of the complaint, and who followed the rule laid down
of complete abstinence, until they were out of danger from a relapse, and
even then for a long time to be cautious in the quantity and digestible
quality of their daily meal. The mixture was as follows:
Brandy, one pint; oil or spirit of peppermint, if the former half an
ounce--if the latter, one ounce; ground black pepper, two ounces; yellow
rind of oranges grated, without any of the white, one ounce; these were
kept closely stopped and occasionally shook, a table-spoonful administered
for each dose, the patient well covered up from the air, and warmth
created by blankets or any other means within their power, repeating the
close as the case required.
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