Earth-Eating and the Earth-Eating Habit in India. 



(With one plate.) 



By David Hooper atid Harold H. Mann. 



[Read 6th December, 1905.] 



Among all the curious perversions of taste existing in various parts of the world, 

 there are few so peculiar or so apparently unaccountable as that of eating earth. Were 

 the habit not very widely extended over the world, it would perhaps hardly be worth any 

 extended investigation ; but it is found among the peoples of every continent, and 

 apparently of almost every race. In India itself there are earth-eaters belonging to every 

 main ethnological division and to every type of climate. The immediate cause, however, 

 which led to the collection of the facts and data in the paper now presented, was the 

 occurrence of the habit among coolies in tea-gardens in various parts of North-Eastern 

 India, and the serious results which it had produced. Originally planned as a collection 

 of data from one small corner of India, it has grown until, owing to the kindness of a 

 very large number of correspondents, it contains materials drawn from almost every 

 corner of the country. 



It will be well to divide the consideration of the subject into sections as follows : — 



Page. 

 I. Extent of earth-eating in other countries 249 



II. The earth-eaters of India 251 



III. The materials used in earth-eating 255 



IV. The earth-eating habit in India 263 



V. The use of earth as a medicine ... 266 



VI. General summary 270 



I. Extent of Earth-Eating in other Countries. 



The use of clay and other earthy substances as a food has often been referred to by 

 authors in Europe. The first historic notice is by Pliny, who relates that the ancient 

 Romans had a dish called alica or frumenta made with Indian corn mixed with chalk col- 

 lected from the hills of Puteoli near Naples. There is no need, however, to go back to 

 the time of this author for examples of its use, for at present, in many parts of Germany 

 clay is used on bread as a substitute for butter, and is termed ' stone ' butter when em- 

 ployed for this purpose. In the northern part of Sweden, earth is often baked into bread, 

 and it is sold in the public market in Italy as well as on the Island of Sardinia. In Fin- 

 land an earth is used for eating which consists mainly of the shells of minute infusoria. 

 Captain Franklin found earth beingused as food among an " Indian " tribe near the Arctic 

 Ocean. 



Turning to America, it is recorded in Chambers's "Encyclopaedia" that clay is 

 eaten by the Rotocudos and other savage tribes, as also in Georgia and the Carolinas 

 by negroes and poor whites. The Ottomacs, a tribe near' the Orinoco, eat a species of 

 unctuous clay, and this diet, which no doubt owed its introduction to famine, is not 



Mem. A.S.B. 20-4=06, 



