322 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. IX. 



infected, have diminished the horrors of epidemics of 

 this disease, and in the present day a scene like the 

 following, as described by Forbes, cannot be expected to 

 occur : " I found," he says, " lying in a field, with her head 

 close to a well, the body of a woman who had but lately 

 expired. Tormented by thirst and deserted by her friends, 

 she had crept to the water, whilst in the last agonies of this 

 loathsome disease. By permission of her relatives I offered 

 her property, including a portion of land, to whoever would 

 bury the body, but all my arguments and entreaties would 

 not induce anyone, even the most wretched pauper, to acquire 

 a competency by burying it." 



Cholera, as an epidemic disease, has at different times 

 made fearful havoc in the Island. Marshal states that 

 epidemic cholera having prevailed in 1817 in India, broke 

 out at Jaffna and Mannar in 1818. It subsequently appeared 

 in Kandy , Colombo, and other garri son towns, a few only of the 

 smaller outposts in Sabaragamuwa, &c, escaping the infection. 

 One of the earlier outbreaks occurred in 1832, at Trincomalee, 

 when it decimated the detachment of the 78th Highlanders 

 at that time stationed there. A very eminent medical man, 

 who had examined the military building at Trincomalee at 

 this time, gave the late gallant Admiral Sir John Gore, his 

 opinion in the following emphatic words : — " The position 

 and construction of the barracks are admirably adapted for 

 originating, and the hospital for maintaining, disease." Subse- 

 quent and later epidemics will receive notice under their 

 respective years of occurrence. 



Berry-berry, beri-beri, or bere-bere, prevailed in Ceylon 

 during the earlier part of the present century. It receives 

 notice from Percival ■ (in 1803), who states that it was 

 occasioned by " the low diet and bad water which the natives 

 are accustomed to use, and in part, perhaps, by the dampness 

 of the climate in the wet season. It swells the body and 

 legs of the patient, and generally carries him off in twenty 

 hours." In his time the plan of treatment was to rub the 



