English
Fish should he cultivated in every pond, lake or canal, especially the ^giradinus poeciloides’ which is a voracious feeder on eggs, larvae and pupae of mosquitoes. All trees on the bank of the water or near the dwelling house which takes away sunshine or interferes with free current of air, should be felled, for the mosquitoes need a dark place to hide in the day time. Laveran recommends the plantation of castor oil plants ' {Prophylaxie du paludism, p. 134), the odor of ^ which he believes drives away mosquitoes, j However the promise held by the Eucalyptus tree has been rather deceptive. Bats appear to j be voracious feeders of mosquito larvae. The next thing is to protect the inhabitants DISEASES 227 against the mosquito bites. Mosquitoes can fly nearly a mile’s distance from the breeding place, and many of them go out and bite only in the evening and at night. And it is the females that do the biting. The males live on vegetable and fruit juice. The life of a female mosquito is about a month. It bites any vertebrate it might come across in order to get blood -which it needs as nourishment for its eggs. But it is only by biting a malarial patient, it can he infected with the malarial plasmodium, which it transmits to others when biting again. Therefore to prevent the spreading of malaria, it is necessary that the inhabitants he protected from mosquito bites, for in a malarial region, almost every one might har¬ bor malarial germ in the blood, though the disease is in a latent form and there is hardly any appar¬ ent symptom, excepting a little malaise and lassi¬ tude. The mosquito bite can be easily prevented by using mosquito wire netting in the windows, which does not prevent the circulation of air. Where it can not be done, mosquito-nets must be used in the bed. And if it is necessary to go out at night, one should take care to wrap the body in clothes or smear the body with carholated vaseline and to use a fine-gauze net I’ound the. ' face and neck. . 228 ANCIENT HINDU JIEDICINE Quinine is the best prophylactic and curative agent against malaria. In the endemic malarial region, it is a wise policy to take 2 to 4 grains of quinine daily, as a preventive medicine, which seems to be much more effective than larger do¬ ses at longer intervals. Chlorbydrate of quinine is pi’eferable in an irritant stomach, or Sulphate of quinine can be given which is much cheaper During the acute stage of the malarial fever, it is better that quinine be administered in doses not smaller than one gram, nearly four hours befoi*e the expectation of the chills, as- quinine takes nearly four hours to act, and ife should act energetically at the time of the sporulation— when the young broods are liber- .atcd and which provokes the chill, and the sporu- les then should be destroyed, for it is very doubt¬ ful how far the old garnets are afifected by quinine. Quinine should be given every day, preferably by mouth and in powder form or in solution, and the bitter taste can be covered and neutralised by addition of syrup glycyrrhizae ( syrup of lico¬ rice) every day when the attack is expected, un¬ til the disease is broken, as it may be due to dodble infection by the. tertian, estivo-autuninal and quartan parasites or to the treble infection of the quartan. And with the exception of rein- DISEASES 1229 fection, relapses cau be usually prevented by giving quinine once a week for four weeks from the occurrence of tlie last chill. During the paroxysm, treatment needs simply 1;o be symptomatic: in chills hot drink, warm co¬ vers and hot fomentations can be applied to relieve the shivering cold sensation, and during the suc¬ ceeding hot period cold application on the head to relieve headache and cold drink to relieve thirst. But the sweating period should not he shortened by antipyretics as it might liarui the organism by retaining the malarial toxins which perspiration tends to eliminate, and that is wliy the sweat of a malarial patient has a peculiar odor. It goes without saying that nourishing food and hygienic living strengthens the resisting power of the organism against any infection. II.-JDiarrhcea. “Excessive consumption of indigestible ( ali¬ mentary diarrhoea provoked by the irritation of the intestinal mucosa through the indigestible residue ), fatty (fatty d. or d. adiposa, caused by the splitting of the fat into irritant fatty acids, or as in jaundice with the deficiency of the bile, by the evacuation of the undigested fatty sub- 230 ANCIENT HINDU MEDICINE stances), drj'’ (mechanical or serous d. caused by an augmentation of pressure within the alimen¬ tary canal with exaggerated serous transudation into the intestine), hot {inflammatory d.), liquid {asthenic d. caused by the fermentation brought by the dilution of the digestive enzymes by an exceedingly large quantity of liquid), coarse {lin~ teric d. in which the undigested or half-digested food particles are contained in the dicharges ), ice-cold {congestive d. is induced by mechani¬ cally stimulating the peristalic contractions and possibly glandular secretions by a large quantity of cold water, thereby increasing the amount and fluidity of the intestinal contents, and by diluting the gastro-intestinal secretions which interfering with digestion, provokes fermentation ; the drinking of ice-cold water and beverages cause loose movements for they mechanically bring about contraction of the superficial vessels of the mucosa, followed by reaction and congestion of the membrane, and if long continued to intesti¬ nal catarrh ), and improper foods [diarrhoea is- provoked by all kinds of food poisoning, hroma- totoxismus either putrefactive, fermentative or infective with all toxemic symptoms : meat-poi¬ soning or kreototoxismus arises from decomposed meat (proteus group alone or associated with DISEASES 23t colon bacilli), meat of diseased animals or infected animals (as tuberculosis ) ; fish-poisoning or= ichthyotoxismus arises from eating fish that is venomous, or only at the spawning season or from feeding upon putrefactive substances or from its decomposed ptomaine poisoning as in' rotten egg ; milk-poisoning or galactotoxismus arises from taking contaminated or spoilt milk : milk may be contaminated from various sources as it is one of the best culture mediums of patho¬ genic germs, as from tuberculosis from a diseased animal, dust on the animal, filthy hand of the milker, unclean receptacle, or, washed with polluted water, or from exposure when left uncovered for a considerable period, and milk usually contains myriads of bacteria, and in it are frequently observed colon bacilli and bacillus enteritidis, and to a lesser extent bacillus enteri- tidis sporogenes, staphilococci, paratyphoid and occasionally typhoid germs ; grain-poisoning or sitotoxismus arises from using spoilt, contaminated or sprouting grains, as pellagra in the use of diseased maize, or in the spoilt pea, paraplegia, or lathyrism ( lupinosis ) in the admixture of the grain with the seeds of the Hathyriia '; it is well known that sprouting potatoes contain at the mouth of the sprouts or the greenish surface of 1532 ANCIENT HINDU MEDICINE the skin exposed to the sun, a glycerid ^kaloid-solanine, wliile many of the mushrooms contain another toxic alkaloid-muscarin], cooked food (uncooked food is not only hard to digest as cooking softens the tissues, but many of the vegetables and fruits might contain fungi, amoeba and the eggs of many intestinal worms which are thus introduced into the alimentary canal where they make their habitat, and pro¬ voke diarrhoea either by irritating the mucusa, or causing ulceration or impaction), disharmonioiis coinbination of foods (as milk and acid, or sugar and acid which is apt to cause fermentation in a weak or debilitated stomach), repeated eating before tlie former meal has been digested {adhya- ingluvie), indigestion {dyspeptic d.) excessive use or abuse of purgation, vomiting and swea,ting (d . cathartica), poisoning (in chronic mercurial poisoning perhaps due to the corro¬ ding action of its salts, there is an extensive ulceration of the alimentary canal, followed by fetid diarrhcea, anemia, foul breath, falling out of the hair, brittleness of the nails, salivation, stomatitis, buccal ulcers and entero- clitis ^ in acute or chronic arsenic poisoning, there is pronounced epigastric and abdo¬ minal pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea DISEASES 233 •of rice water and often bloodv and offensive stools, suppression of urine or bloody urine, neuralgic pains and paralysis ; in lead poisoning, the gums have a bluish black tinge, progressive anemia., nutritive disturbance, constipation, but often alternating with diarrhoea), anxiety {enio- iional cl.) depression (nervous or neurotic d.) ‘polluted water (water containing dysenteric germs or large amount of earthly alkali as magnesium or sodium, calcium or potassium car¬ bonates, dissolved from the soil) excessive drink¬ ing of spirituous liquor (in chronic alcoholism diarrhoea results from the thickened, inflamed, congested and often ulcerated intestinal mucosa, imperfect gastro-intestinal indigestion, inter¬ ference with colonic absorption, disturbance of the biles due to congestion and cirrhosis of the liver, and the effect of alcohol upon the local and cerebro-spinal nerve-centres controlling.intes¬ tinal nutrition, secretion and motility, thus pro¬ voking diarrhoea alternating with constipation), mental derangement {neurogenic d.), sudden seasonal changes (thermic or summer d.