45 8 Voyage of the Novara. 



remedies tlie most repulsive and disgusting substances which 

 they can select from their Materia Medica, such as the 

 saliva of the toad, beetles, snakes, worms, scorpions, centi- 

 pedes, &c. &c. 



Dr. Hobson considers leprosy, when once fully developed, 

 to be incurable. Such remedies as arsenic, salts, acids, in 

 short alteratives, occasionally prove efficacious at an early stage 

 of the malady, as also Iodine baths, and mercm-ial friction. 

 External remedies however are usually found to be unavailing 

 in reaching the root of the disorder, its seat lying deeper than 

 an ordinary affection of the sldn. 



Of late years the seeds of the Tschaul or Tscharul Mugra 

 (one of the order of Flacourtiacece), have been administered for 

 leprosy by several English physicians in India, and certainly, 

 in some instances, with such results that the most sanguine 

 hopes were entertained of its efficacy in all cases of leprosy. 

 Dr. Hobson informed us that Dr. Mouatt, of the Medical Col- 

 lege, Calcutta, who was the first to discover the remarkable 

 properties of this plant, sent him, when he was at Canton, a 

 considerable quantity of these seeds for the purpose of experi- 

 menting with them.* They were ground into a coarse pow- 



* At the Refuge for the Destitute {Monegu choultry) at Madras, where Dr. Mudge 

 was at the same time instituting experiments lasting over two years, exhibiting these 

 same remedies in every form and shape of elephantiasis, to which cases a special 

 ward had been set apart, rarely entertaining fewer than 100 -patients, that gentleman 

 found it to be perfectly inoperative, and he accordingly entirely ceased prescribing it. 

 In lieu of the Tscharul Mugra, the Hindoos in cases of leprosy make use of what are 

 known as the " Asiatic pills," consisting of arsenic, pepper, and the root of the Asclepia 

 gigantea. 



