FEEJEE GROUP. 347 



relief. The ulcers are usually left to nature, no applications being 

 made until they are very foul, from the quantities of pus discharged, 

 which serves in place of a covering. The mother takes a child who 

 is affected with the disease to a running brook, and with a sharp shell 

 or piece of bamboo, scrapes the ulcers all down even with the skin ', 

 she then rubs them in soot, and the ulcers usually heal rapidly after 

 such treatment. It seems a very painful one, but I did not find the 

 children complain or cry much while undergoing it. 



They generally believe that the disease will run its course, but they 

 avoid eating pork or any thing sweet, as they have found, by expe- 

 rience, it is hurtful and aggravates the disease. If the eruption has 

 a tendency to dry up at too early a period, Dr. Fox says they give an 

 infusion which has the effect of driving it out ; but he did not learn 

 particularly what it was. 



While at Levuka, Dr. Fox had several of the white men, affected 

 with the disease, under treatment. One of them had had it for 

 about a year. Dr. Fox says that this man was improving when 

 he first saw him, but was still labouring under severe pains in damp 

 weather. All the ulcerations had been healed excepting one upon the 

 frontal bone, which was exposed. This ulcer was of the size of a 

 shilling. He placed his patient on a generous diet, gave him sar- 

 saparilla freely, and before we left Ovolau his pains had left him 

 entirely. The outer table of the skull came away, and the parts 

 healed over it. He saw this man a month afterwards, when he was 

 perfectly well. He adopted the same treatment with a number of 

 others, applying the Citron ung. to the ulcers, which operated like a 

 charm, healing them up very rapidly. 



Foreigners are not exempt from this disease. If they remain any 

 time in the group, they are affected in the same manner as the natives. 

 Age seems to influence it but little. 



The natives assign no cause for the disease, but Dr. Fox thinks the 

 climate, diet, and habits of the natives are the general causes pro- 

 ducing it. 



The influenza is at times prevalent among the natives, where the 

 foreigners call it the "dandy cough." It was so prevalent, that 

 scarcely one escaped. The natives give it the name of the Papalangi 

 disease, as they suppose that it was brought among them by the 

 whites. It made its appearance among them some years since, and 

 again about a year before our arrival. Dr. Fox thinks, from the de- 

 scription he received from the natives, that it resembles in all parti- 



