Report on the depopulation of the Vanni District, Northern Province / by James Loos ; ordered by His Honor the Officer Administering the Government to the printed.

  • Loos, James.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the depopulation of the Vanni District, Northern Province / by James Loos ; ordered by His Honor the Officer Administering the Government to the printed. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    kulam the number of the inhabitants is sixty-two, of whom twenty-four are women and only fifteen children. From this circumstance not having been noticed at an earlier period of the inquiry, I am not able to adduce statistics; but after it attracted my attention, I noted down the number of children, and f and a similar disproportion in other villages. Your letter indicates the Purancji disease as the special object of inquiry. I am alive to the difKculty of the investigation, as T am aware tliat the disease has not been unnoticed by Medical men who have at various times practised in this Island, and that they have been perplexed in forming an opinion with 'egard^ its true nature and_oi-igin. lam not willijig, therefore, to dogmatize on the siTDject,~aTtKough X ain stating the results of careful observation. Nalive Medical books contain allusions to the Faraiigi leda (Parangi disease). In Marshall's Topoiiraphy of Ceylon, an account is given of the disease, derived from Native sources. In the chapter headed Notes regarding the Practice of Medicine among the Kandyans, he observes that it is a complaint mentioned in Kandyan Medical Works, that Parangi leda seems to have been originally intended to denominate a new disease, and from the siniilariiy of the sound and other collateral ciicunistiiuces, it may perhaps be inferred that the tenu meant Portuguese disease. There is, however, no tradition among the Kandyans respecting the importation of a disease ; and the priests assert that Paraggi disease is mentioned in the books which were written during the last incarnation of Buddha In a copy in my possession of Hoaston's Notes on the Materia Medica, and the Practice of Medicine of the Sinhalese, written in 1822, laid (according to Ainslie's Materia Indica) before the Literary Society of Ceylon, but never printed, there is an account of the disease as known to Native Practitioners. Its varieties, syniptouis, and treatment, according to the Sinhalese, are detailed by both Marshall and Hoaston ; but nothing satisfactory ia stated with regard to its nature or probable causes. Marshall says, The colloquial communications of the Kandyan Vedaralas are very unsatisfactory, relating to any part of their profession, but to none more than respecting Parangi ledn. They do not speak of it as a specific disease It may be communicated, thcv say, by contact with the atiected, particularly by using^ the same vessels, or walking with the same stick, as'tT)ose~wTio labour under the disease. This is the way in which they commonly account for tlie propagation oK Parangi; although they allowjthat it arises spontaneously. This well expresses the sum and substance of the information I have been ablj to obtain from conversation with Native practitioners, Tamul and Sinhalese. Their ideas respect- ing the origin of the disease are confused. They believe it to be contagious, and that it is frequently acquired by children playing together, by the use of the same domestic utensils, as well as by co-habitation. AnotVier remark made by Dr, Marshall also accords with my experTencel Vedaralas of the highest reputation use the term Parangi in a very treneral and undefined sense; except the liori (scabies) they seem to call every kind of cuticular eruption, Parangi. I found the same vagueness on the part of those who pointed out to me cases of Parangi, or, as it is more commonly called in this Province, Kiranti. Affections which would be separately named and classed by European dermatologists are comprehended under the general name of Kiranti or Parangi. The only other skin affections I heai'd named were Sirangu (itch) and Karappan, also an indefinite class of diseases of the skin of a mild form, api)arently papular and vesicular eruptions, from teething in children or fronti disorder of the digestive organs in adults. The severer and more inveterate forms of skin disease are called Kiranti. Cases of chronic ulcers in the legs were even pointed out as cases of the disease, and two or three appeared to me marked cases of true leprosy (Elephantiasis Groecorum,) Setting aside the cases which may be easily resolved into well-known forms of skin disease met with everywhere, there is an obscure class of skin diseases, intimately allied, and probably having a coumion origin, prevalent in the interior of Ceylon generally, and more especially in the Vanni. To this class, I would restrict the term I'arangi. The disease is met with in the Maritime parts of the Island, but I am satisfied it is then in a mild and modified form, probably from the aggravating causes not being so fully in operation as they are in the interior. It is met with in both sexes and at all ages; the one sex is not more liable to it than the other, and it is equally common at all periods of life. The eruptions are either pustular or tubercular, less frequently scaly. The pustules are small, round and scattered, with an elevated scab, as in rupia. The tubercles are at first hard, but afterwards soften and give exit to pus, and the ulcers formed are apt to become sinuous. These frequently run together, and larger ulcers are formed, which are liable to spread. The sores are UTcgular in shape, in some parts deeper than at other parts, covered more or less witli'yenowisli and dark coloured crusts; the discharge ichorous, but not copious. I found se\'eral persons with ulcers of tlns~lind on the hips and thighs ; other parts, however, were also the scats of ulceration. Sometimes the ulcers were found healed in the centre, or were healing in one direction while they were spread- ing in another, so that extensive portions of the surface were found cicatrized, while other portions were ulcerated. lu children, ulceration was sometimes observed around the lips, [164] DEPOPULATIOV OF THE V\NNI DISTUICT.