HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
217 
In the native mode of treatment, the remedies are few 
and simple. When a person is seized with the fever, the 
remedy is directed by the sikidy, or divination. Inquiry in 
such cases is made of the sikidy, in which house the patient 
must dwell. Then they make his couch, that he may lie 
on the west of the hearth, near the fire, and administer 
plenty of rice to eat; yea, they compel him to swallow 
boiled rice, or any food, as they believe this to be essential 
to his recovery. 
The most beneficial remedy in the early stage of the 
disorder is supposed to be rice-water, which produces per¬ 
spiration, and is supposed to nourish the system during the 
season of aversion to food. When the skin is dry and hot, 
or a fit of fever comes on, the vapour-bath is used; leaves, 
supposed to possess medicinal qualities, being first boiled in 
the water. This diminishes the force of the fever, and some¬ 
times checks it entirely, if it be used half an hour before 
the regular time of the appearance of the paroxysms which 
come on every other day. When the effect of the bath is 
thus salutary, the patient will then have an interval of 
ninety-six hours in which to recruit his strength, instead of 
only forty-eight. He will thereby be proportionably better 
fortified against the next attack. Besides rice-water, an 
infusion of herbs possessing aperient qualities are adminis¬ 
tered ; to these they sometimes add a decoction of leaves, 
which is exceedingly bitter, supposed to act as a tonic. 
In addition to the use of the vapour-bath half an hour 
before the paroxysm comes on, they take the warm bath 
every evening, which, with a quantity of warm drink, never 
fails to produce moisture on the skin, and gives the patient 
rest in the night. 
Capt. Le Sage, who visited the island on a special mission 
from the government of Mauritius in 1816 , and proceeded to 
