0?T INDIAN DISEASES, IN DETAIL. 133 



In short, European childi-en are peculiarly healthy, and 

 thrive most remarkably on the hills. 



The effects of the climate on natives of tlie low country, 

 are somewhat modified ; it being to them nearly as much 

 a foreign climate as India is to us. They are very subject to 

 slight ephemeral fever, and bowel-complaint, on their first 

 ascent, particularly if care be not taken to prevent their ex- 

 posing themselves to wet, and sleeping on the ground. They 

 very readily become acclimatized, however, and it appears to 

 me that they become more muscular, and more capable of 

 enduring fatigue, than even in their own country. 



The general plan of treatment pursued, may be described 

 in a very few words. In the first instance, I have generally 

 endeavoured to obviate the effects of the sudden transition, 

 and consequent congestion of the viscera, by mild aperients, 

 diaphoretics, warm bath, &c. 



The after treatment depends of course on the peculiar 

 nature of the original disease. If an hepatic affection, a 

 course of alterative mercurial medicines (Plummer's pill is my 

 favorite prescription), nitric acid, a mercurial plaster on the 

 side, and finally tonics of the simple description. 



In dysentery, ipecacuanha, in the form recommended by 

 Mr. Twining, is our sheet-anchor — and has proved equally 

 efficacious in simple diarrhoea ; sulphate of zinc, sulphate of 

 copper, and the usual tonics, have also been adopted with 

 advantage : the former of these medicines, (assisted by tartar 

 emetic in nauseating doses during the paroxysms,) I have 

 found highly useful in cephalalgia. Fever, is generally subdu- 

 ed, by smart purgatives and diaphoretics during the tit, with 

 quinine in considerable doses during the intervals, parti- 

 cularly just before the access of the tit. I have, now and 

 then, been obliged to have recourse to arsenic, in the more 



