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HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
The pharmacopoeia of the Malagasy, though simple and 
limited as it regards the substances embraced, admits of 
considerable variety in their mode of administration. No 
mineral preparations, excepting such as have been brought 
by foreigners, are ever employed, unless in this class certain 
kinds of red and white native earth, occasionally used, be 
included. Gunpowder is sometimes used. Animal substances 
are employed, but the Malagasy remedies are chiefly vege¬ 
table, consisting of roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, and seeds 
of different plants, or the bark of different shrubs and 
trees, aromatic gums, of which their forests furnish many 
varieties, and several kinds of moss and grass, tobacco, and 
capsicum. With the medicinal qualities of many of the 
indigenous productions of the country, the natives, espe¬ 
cially the mpana ody, (Malagasy physicians and diviners,) 
seem to be correctly acquainted. Barks, gums, leaves, 
roots, &c., possessing an aperient, cathartic, diuretic, tonic, 
or sedative property, are generally applied in cases in 
which they are specifically required. Hence they are able 
sometimes to arrest the progress of the fever, when the 
symptoms of inflammation are violent and decisive. The 
remedies taken internally consist of decoctions or infu¬ 
sions. External applications are in the form of fomen¬ 
tations, poultices, or ointments made by heating the fat of 
animals. 
As a general practice, the natives bathe less frequently 
than those of many warm climates where water is equally 
abundant as in Madagascar, but the vapour-bath is a fa¬ 
vourite remedy with the sick, and frequently in the early 
stages of the fever it is most successfully applied. 
The manner of procuring the vapour-bath is singular, 
and differs from that ordinarily pursued in this country or 
in Russia, where the steam-bath is in more general use 
