prior to the first appearance of Europeans in the
seas of the Archipelago. This pretence of the Javanese,
however, according to their vague chronology,
amounts to nothing more than ascribing the fact
to the more recent portion of their ancient story ;
and is such as has been followed in many other instances
besides the present. The venereal disease
is called by them the royal distemper,—a name
which, in all probability, they borrowed from the
Europeans, to whom the introduction of the disorder,
there is little doubt, ought to be ascribed.
A disease, analogous to the venereal, called Patek,
prevails in Java. It is in fact the Yaws or Sivvens,
and its introduction is ascribed to the Chinese.
Gout, the disease of luxury, and of those who
consume animal food largely, is a malady unheard
of among the Indian islanders of any rank. Of
scrofula I have scarcely discovered any indications.
Stone is very rare ; and dropsies are not frequent.
Apoplexy, paralytic disorders, and epilepsy, are
rarer than in Europe.
Cutaneous disorders of many kinds, several
of them unknown to Europeans, are very common.
The natives themselves ascribe them generally to
the extensive consumption of fish ; and point- out
several races of men nearly Ichthyophagi, whose
bodies, in consequence of their diet, áre perpetually
covered by a loathsome scurf. *
* “ The Mindanao people are much troubled with a sort of
leprosie, the same as we observed at Guam. This distemper
Among children the most frequent and fatal disorders
arise from worms in the intestines, which
may be ascribed to the unrestricted and constant
use of raw vegetables and fruit. We are surprised
to find the Indian islanders wholly unaware that
teething is the cause of disease in infants. This
may possibly in some measure be owing to their
own want of observation, but more likely in a great
degree to the extraordinary mildness of the symptoms
of dentition in their climate.
runs with a dry scurf all oyer their bodies, and causeth great
itching in those that have it, making them frequently scratch
and scrub themselves, which raiseth the outer skin in small
whitish flakes, like the scales of little fish when they are
raised on end with a knife. This makes their skins extraordinary
rough, and in some you shall see broad white spots in
several parts of their body. I judge such have had it, but are
cured ; for their skins were smooth, and 1 did not perceive
them to scrub themselves; y e ti have learnt from their own
mouths, that these spots were from this distemper. Whether
they use any means to cure themselves, or whether it goes
away of itself, I know n o t; but 1 did not pefceive that they
made any great matter of it, for they did never refrain any
company for it. None of our people caught it of them, for
we were afraid of it, and kept off. They are sometimes troubled
with the small-pox ; but their ordinary distempers are fevers,
agues, fluxes, with great pains and gripings in their guts.
The country affords a great many drugs and medicinal herbs,
whose virtues are not unknown to some of them that pretend
to cure the sick.”—Dampier’s Voyages, Vol. I. p. 334.