EARTH-EATING AND THE EARTH-EATING HABIT IN INDIA. 265 



The evil effect on the health of children of acquiring the habit is quite recognised 

 by the parents, and they have frequently much trouble in watching their children in order 

 to prevent them from acquiring it. Some parents take special precautious to prevent 

 their children acquiring the habit, and, if they happen to do so, amulets or charms are 

 obtained from a midla or saiad and are said to cure it. In Calcutta a careful mother will 

 place mm (Melia indica) leaves, which are bitter, on the earth near the house to prevent 

 the children from using the mud. Children left to themselves easily fall into the custom 

 of eating mud and filth of all kinds, and as they grow older invent ingenious methods 

 for storing it which escape most vigilant detection. The habit amongst children is said 

 not to be retained after ten or twelve years. Early marriage is regarded by some as a 

 cure for the craving, but there is evidence that with women sometimes the marriage state 

 inaugurates the trouble. 



The custom is occasionally found among boys who, as usual, practise it in secrecy 

 and use strange methods to satisfy their cravings. A case is related of a student in 

 Madras, a Vishava Brahmin, who acquired the habit of eating the sectarial mark of white 

 earth on his forehead. On the mark drying he would seek an early opportunity to retire, 

 and when alone he removed and ate the clay. He became very anaemic and sallow, and 

 dyspepsia was his constant complaint. 



The effects of the habit are disastrous. Those women addicted to it after a short 

 time, often within a year, complain first of pain and weakness in the limbs, palpitation and 

 difficulty of walking a little distance up hill, and after some time all the other symptoms 

 of anaemia are fully established ; sallow and pale complexion, tongue, gums, and con- 

 junctiva quite pale and bloodless, weakness of the abdomen and general debility. Very 

 often dropsy supervenes. 



In the worst cases they become swollen in the face and body ; they are unable to pass 

 urine without medical aid ; they also suffer from constipation, disorders of the liver, stone 

 {pathri), sometimes jaundice, and rheumatism; they refuse all other food, and drink only 

 water. Another medical opinion given to us indicates that the habit causes chronic 

 dyspepsia, enteritis and slow death from destruction of the absorbing surface of the intes- 

 tine. Still another states that dysentery is very common among earth-eaters and is of a 

 type usually fatal. It is also said that persons addicted to the habit are particularly 

 liable to disease ; they seem to have no power to resist diseases and die very easily. 



A medical officer of a Tea Estate in Travancore says the habit causes anaemia and 

 dropsy followed by dysentery and generally debility. The peculiar sickness is called 

 mun shoga (mud-anaemia), and although they are fully aware of the cause the coolies con- 

 tinue the habit. 



It has been found in famine districts that when people take to earth-eating to allay 

 the pangs of hunger, it is often followed by disastrous consequences. Colonel Adams 

 says that when used in excess it gives rise to malnutrition, emaciation, bowel disease, 

 swollen feet and other signs of starvation. Clay may, therefore, minimise the cramps of 

 hunger for a time, but it stops the peristaltic action of the stomach, produces diarrhoea 

 and dysentery and consequently death. 



There is no suitable cure for this habit except restraining those addicted to it from the 



