1 54 VOYAGE FROM IXDIA TO SI AM AND MALACCA. 



I asked one of the chief doctors of the king" of Siam about 

 their medical instruction, but learned very little from him. He 

 said that their chief books on medicine had been burned or taken 

 away by the Burmans, and I had much difficulty to g'et a look into 

 the books which had remained intact. They don't know anything* 

 of the pulse ; in its stead they feel the heart, and from its beating", 

 the temperature and kind of pespiration, they judg-e the nature 

 of the illness. But they believe themselves to be better doctors 

 than the Burmans, because the latter do not understand any 

 measuring of the beating' of the heart. 



They sing to the invalids who are deadly sick and pray for 

 help to one of their first doctors, who was said to have treated 

 one of their great idols ; they shut the door of the house, that 

 no evil spirit may enter, and in case of a merchant being ill they 

 even close his shop. They don't understand anything about 

 anatomy, only at times they dissect children in order to find the 

 cause of an illness. They believe that the seat of the soul is in 

 the pit of the stomach, because this is the most sensitive part of 

 the body in case of any illness or passion. They do not know 

 where the first g^erm of human life in both sexes has its seat, both 

 soul and life after their opinion come from heaven. 



The heathens here take also part in the New Year's fes- 

 tivities of the Christians, like the natives of the Coromandel 

 coast, in so far as the festivities reg'ard the New Year's gifts. 

 The Eomish Christians inaugurate the New Year with drunken- 

 ness and the vices issuing- from it. 



As the ship was said to start from here in a few days, 

 I went out in the afternoon to fetch some roots of the different 

 Cannas and a new kind of Clercdendron. • 



2. — To-day we, saw the Cochin Chinese dancers ; in reality 

 only two of them danced, three others played on different instru- 

 ments, consisting of two little drums and a kind of Zither, an 

 instrument of three feet long and J of a foot wide, having every- 

 where the same length and being convex ; upon it were fastened 

 some brass strings. The girl who played it, used her nails for 

 this purpose, which were almost an inch in length, and were 

 guarded with a ring', so that they should not break. The dress 

 of the dancers was Chinese ; they had no head dress, their hair 

 was tied in a round bundle on the top of their head. They wore 

 a long dress, reaching down as far as their knees, and open on 



