of the Malabar Caidamoin. 245 



Fevers and fluxes commit ravages much more extensive. — The 

 season of reaping coincides with that wlien the insalubrity of 

 the air happens to be at its 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 accumulate 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 is never escaped, — that is, numerous bites of leeches (a 

 small species of Hirudo geometru) 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, true to the ancient definition, 

 *' non missura cutem, 7iisi 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, 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 so 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. I'he name of the plant in 

 question is Mouricha, denoting in Malabar its cutting or acri- 

 monious quality. It is from eight to twelve feet high, Avith large 

 leaves acutely oval and subserrated ] (junk from two to three 

 VOL, X. 2 k inches 



