TIBET. 
409 
meet with in the lowlands of Essex, and the fens in Lincolnshire. An 
accurate analysis of the water used in common by the natives, where 
this disease is more or less frequent, and where it is not known in 
similar exposures, might throw some light on this subject. 
This very extraordinary disease has been little attended'to, from 
obvious reasons; it is unaccompanied with pain, is seldom fatal, and 
generally confined to the poorer sort of people. The tumour is un¬ 
sightly, and grows to a troublesome size, being often as large as a 
person’s head. It is certainly not exaggerating to say, that one in six, 
of the Rungpore district and country of Boutan, has this disease. 
As those who labour most, and are the least protected from the 
changes of the weather, are most subject to the disease, we univer¬ 
sally find it in Boutan, more common with the women than men. It 
generally appears in Boutan at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and in 
Bengal at the age of eleven or twelve; so that in both countries the 
disease show's itself about the age of puberty. I do not believe this 
disease has ever been removed, though a mercurial course seemed to 
check its progress, but did not prevent its advance after intermitting 
the use of mercury. An attention to the primary cause, will first lead 
to a proper method of treating the disease; a change of situation for 
a short while, at that particular period when it appears, might be the 
means of preventing it. 
The people of this happy climate are not exempt from the venereal 
disease, which seems to rage with unremitting fury in all climates, and 
proves the greatest scourge to the human race. It has been long a 
matter of doubt, whether this disease has ever been cured by any 
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