Miscellaneous. 



398 



[June 100/. 



land ; it is common on the boundary of Baluchistan, and is also found in Assam and 

 Manipur, near the North East Frontier ; it is known and practised among the jungle 

 tribes of Chota Nagpur, and also by the high caste Hindus of Bengal, and the 

 Muhammadans of the Panjab;the Kolarin, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and Mongolian 

 peoples all indulge in the habit of earth-eating. This universal practice points to a 

 deeper-seated cause for the habit than any ethnological or national distinction. The 

 materials used confirm this position. Certain forms of earth are certainly preferreds 

 and these preferred forms are sold in the bazaars all over India. Some are burnt 

 before use (Patkholas, &c.) ; some are sold and used in the raw condition (Multani 

 mitti). But in the absence of these prepared forms, the people turn to the most 

 diverse material to satisfy the desire. Clays, shales, alluvial muds, even sandy soil, 

 are* all used when once the habit is established. Luckily, and perhaps by reason of 

 past experience, the material is usually dug out from well below the surface of the 

 soil, and thus infections otherwise inevitable are usually avoided. 



What then is the cause of such a widespread habit, and one which, it seems 

 must be satisfied, when once indulgence has commenced ? We are inclined to 

 attribute it primarily to the purely mechanical effect it seems to have in comforting 

 gastric or intestinal irritation. This may or may not be due to disease ; if it is so 

 due, the result is quickly to aggravate the disease it is taken to alleviate ; if not it 

 rapidly produces effects which bring on disease. Gastric or similar irritation is 

 inseparable from certain periods in a woman's life, and these are precisely the 

 periods when the earth-eating habit is contracted. Once indulged in, the wish for 

 similar alleviation becomes a craving, and the habit, as is usually the case with 

 similar ones, strengthens itself, and brings on disease of the digestive canal. In the 

 cases where men indulge, probably the habit has some similar origin. 



Such is the habit as we have considered it. The use of clay as food in time of 

 famine, or as a medicine is hardly essential to the present subject, but we believe 

 that in the above explanation will be found the cause of a habit which overspreads 

 all countries and breaks ethnological boundaries of every sort. [Memoirs of Ihe 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal (Vol. 1, No. 12).] 



CONCERNING THE MEDICAL MANAGEMENT OP COOLIES IN 



MALAYA. 

 By P. N. Gerhard, m.d. 

 Whilst the cry of "Rubber ! Rubber ! and large profits !" resounds through- 

 out Ceylon and the Straits and is wafted abroad from these countries, may I be 

 permitted, in the interest of both the capitalist and the coolie, to draw the attention 

 of employers of labour to a few points which seem to me to affect the future of 

 the industry ; certainly in this country, and probably in every country wherein a 

 large amount of labour is employed. 



Firstly, then, I would point out that all the wealth in the world will not 

 profit a man broken down in health. Secondly, that a dead or broken down cooly 

 is of no practical use on any estate. Thirdly, that unless due precautions be taken, 

 both these lamentable eventualities are at least liable to occur, and indeed, as far aa 

 I have seen of the conditions under which the imigrant lives after importation to 

 this country as an agricultural labourer, the failure of the coolie is quite probable. 



As it is my purpose to deal principally with the conditions of life of the 

 Coolie— the pawn upon whom the question of profits must be a large extent depend — 

 it will probably be sufficient advice in dealing with my first point if I say to 

 Jnanagers and assistants i— , 



