of the Malabar Cardamom. 245 
Fevers and fluxes commit ravages much more extensive.—The 
season of reaping coincides with that when the insalubrity of 
the air happens to be atits highest pitch: the great heats of 
October, succeeding to the equinoctial rains, operating upon a 
drenched soil, and exhaling’ vapours from a profusion of luxu- 
riant undergrowth, must aceuun biti a mass of miasmata which 
becomes more. intensely noxious by stagnation, a circumstance 
of itself well known to have a tendency to corrupt or alter the 
healthy proportions of the respirable fluid, and thus lay a sure 
foundation for the diseases mentioned. A more directly painful 
calamity i is never escaped, —that is, numerous bites of leeches (a 
small species of Hirudo geometra) whose numbers are infinite, 
and attacks incessant. Their size varies from two to six lines. 
"Their minuteness and gentle mode of suction seldom engage at- 
tention or excite precaution ; but, tepe! to the ancient definition, 
* mon missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, they only fall off when. 
glutted with blood, the copious flow of which at length indicates 
the authors. ‘The simple consequence of these would be otherwise 
little felt, were it not for the abundance of a small shrubby 
plant, v whose leaves are so acrid, or rather caustic, as to inflame by 
simple contact the sound skin for more than a day, as I ex- 
perienced in. myself ; and if they touch.a. wound made by the 
leeches, the inflammation is sure to increase ; and most fre- 
quently , extended ulcerations, phagedenic . in their progress and 
‚fatal in. ‚their. termination, . ‘succeed, the symptomatic fever 
excited. running s0: high as to carry off the patient, who con- 
ceives himself happy if he escape with only a contraction of 
the: member or muscles thus affected. ‘The name of the plant in 
question is Mouricha, denoting i in Malabar its cutting or.acri- 
monious quality.’ It is from eight to twelve feet high, with large 
leaves acutely oval and subserrated ; trunk from two. to three 
VOL. X. 2 K . inches 
