No. 12.— 1860-1.] HEALTH AND DISEASE IN CEYLON. 365 



the example of the natives, but we should follow the sugges- 

 tions of our own more advanced state of civilization. 



We now return to the question of the propriety of the 

 ordinary diet of Europeans in Indict. We find among the 

 natives a very general use of hot spices, chillies, and such 

 stimulants ; but what encouragement does their condition 

 present to us, to imitate them ? We see them, for the most 

 part, a weak and indolent race, disinclined to the least extra 

 exertion, and when attacked by disease, much sooner suc- 

 cumbing to it than Europeans. They are, occasionally, per- 

 haps induced to exert themselves under the hope of a reward, 

 but then, though a casual observer might think them capable 

 of enduring a large amount of fatigue, they will generally 

 be found to suffer from it afterwards. 



These remarks of course apply principally to the working 

 classes, w r ho form, I imagine, at least nine-tenths of the popu- 

 lation of India, — and these, it must be admitted, frequently 

 suffer much from insufficient or bad food : but still their 

 boiled rice, with even a very small quantity of vegetable or fish, 

 contains fully as much nourishment as the potatoes on which 

 the poorer class of Irish, in many cases, almost entirely 

 subsist; and yet an Irishman will, I will venture to say, do 

 three times the amount of work in a day, that can be got out of 

 a cooly, or a Sinhalese workman. 



To this some, perhaps, will say, but what amount of work 

 would the Irishman do on a Coffee Estate under a hot sun ? 

 My reply would be, put them both under similar conditions, 

 that is, the Irishman under a hot sun in India, and set the cooly 

 to work in Ireland in the winter, and I think it would then be 

 found that the Irishman would still do three times as much 

 work as the native of India. 



Now, I think that the deduction from this must be, 

 that there is something in the food of the natives here 

 that interferes with the proper digestion and distribution of 

 the actual amount of nourishment which they consume ; and 

 I can imagine nothing better calculated to effect this, than 



