170 On the Bohsas of Bijno-ur. [No. 3, 



vation however energetic, and that consequently, except in one or 

 two favoured villages iu good seasons, the mass of these people mostly 

 subsist for a great part of the year on the wild yam, which does not 

 contain all the elements for properly replenishing the blood, — that 

 their supply of pulse which might supplement this want is not large, 

 and that they grow almost no vegetables. Doubtless the flesh they 

 eat, when it can be got, tends to lessen the detrimental consequences 

 of their monotonous and miserable diet, but with the Disarming Act 

 even partially enforced, they do not get the full benefit of that 

 palliative. They are, at the best, but spare small men, and become 

 prematurely old and feeble. Men of forty I have noted as " thin, grey, 

 and breathless," and they themselves attribute their ailments to scanty 

 food. 



It would appear that the state of system induced among the Bohsas, 

 by the circumstances of their diet, is similar to that arising among 

 some classes of the Irish from continued subsistence upon the potato 

 alone, as detailed in a paper read to the Dublin Royal Society by a 

 medical member in the course of last year. It is also analogous to that 

 condition which is noted by Dr. Mouat as leading to the fearful mortali- 

 ty among the Sontals, and members of other wild tribes in the jails of 

 Bengal, and which has also at times been observed among prisoners 

 in Great Britain, in consequence of ill-advised changes in the dietary. 

 Within the last few months, the existence of a similar state of consti- 

 tution caused by poor diet has been suggested, by an experienced 

 medical officer, as predisposing to the fatality of epidemic fever among 

 the prisoners in the Punjab jails. This state of system, as existing 

 among the Boksas, is perhaps more nearly allied to scurvy than to any 

 other disorder, and although they or other people, in a condition of 

 freedom, in whom it exists, probably seldom die immediately from it, 

 yet it renders them infinitely more liable to succumb to attacks of 

 epidemic or other disorders. 



It is likely that the debility so evident in the adults likewise 

 exists in the children of this tribe. Besides the numbers of young 

 persons alluded to above, as carried off by epidemics ; of 14 instances 

 in which the age at which death occurred was incidentally mentioned, 

 eight occurred before puberty, only six afterwards ; and in almost all 

 the families whose circumstances happened to be detailed, the minority 



