No. 32,-1886.] MEDICAL HISTORY OF CEYLON, 



313 



must have been deluded, when he was induced to believe that 

 cancers, which are considered incurable in Europe, were cured 

 in a week in Ceylon. Ribe yro also alludes to the prevalence 

 of small-pox, which t he natives called " ankaria, or an affair 

 with God," because it appears as if only a miracle can cure it.* 

 The following sketch of the mission of Padre Vaz, a Portu- 

 guese Priest in Ceylon, who died in 1711, is taken from a 

 Portuguese work written by Padre Dorego : — " The small-pox 

 now visited Ceylon, and made fearful ravages. The people 

 believing that all persons labouring under the disorder were 

 possessed by the devil avoided them, as they would him ; 

 the father ran away fro m his children, the wife from her 

 husband, leaving them to perish without food : the sick 

 perished, therefore, as much from hunger and panic as from 

 the virulence of the disorder. The dead became so numer- 

 ous that they were left unburied, or carried to distant 

 places, while the poor wretches affected were driven by the 

 Government into the jungle. When the contagion had 

 reached Kandy, the king left it, as the stench of the dead 

 bodies in the streets was unbearable. Vaz resolved to visit 

 both Christians and Pagans, and being with provisions from 

 his followers in Colombo, relieved their distress. He also 

 followed the sick into the jungles, and building huts as well 

 as time and place would permit, there sheltered them from 

 the elements and the attacks of wild beasts : in a word, he 

 contrived to supply every want, temporal and spiritual, per- 

 formed the most menial services, opened hospitals in the 

 deserted houses, and dared everything for their relief. The 

 result was that members who were saved joined the Church, 



* The same correspondent writes : — " This is Le Grand's statement. Lee 

 in his translation of Le Grand did not attempt any explanation of this 

 wonderful word Anltaria : what Ribeyro really wrote was Deanecliariya, 

 i, e. r DeviyanMriya, Le Grand apparently mistook the first syllable for 

 the proposition de ! (I may mention that I possess the MS. of Eibeyro's 

 narrative used by Le Grand, and that it reads deancharia ; in this MS. 

 the words are run together very much, so that there was some excuse for this 

 blunder.)" — Bon. Sec, 



