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of products native to Acheh, but many more simples of Indian and Arabian and even of Chinese origin. Without making the smallest claim to completeness, I note below some of the recipes used in indispositions of common occurrence in Acheh. It should be added that the proportion of each ingredient and the amount of the dose are determined in each case by the instructions of the ma ubat[1]. In Java in like manner, purely native prescriptions contain no indications as to quantity, or only very vague ones.
The remedy prescribed for all inflammation of the eyes is injection of the juice squeezed from the buds of the wild fig.
Conjunctivitis.Conjunctivitis (mata timòh lit. = "germination of the eye") is very common. It is treated by dropping into the diseased eye about sundown on three successive evenings the juice obtained by rubbing a certain viscous sort of grass called naleuëng awō. This is repeated seven times on the first evening, five on the second and thee on the third. There is another method of treating this disease which suggests the symbolical heart-cleansing of the hajis at Jèbèl Nur near Mekka[2]. A cocoanut-shell is laid on the patient’s head, and on it is placed a grain of rice (a symbol of the white "bud" in the eyeball) with a little piece of turmeric (kunyèt). The grain of rice and the kunyèt are then cut through with a sharp knife. "If it be Allah's will" the ulcer in the eye will then shortly break up and disappear.
Small-pox patients[3] are "cooled" by being bathed on three successive days with water in which finely pounded leaves of peureuya laʾōt are left to ferment. This bathing is called the first, second and third water (ië sa, dua, lhèë). After the third water there is hope of recovery, as, if the patient is going to die, he generally does so before that time.
When the small-pox ulcers have appeared, the patient is rubbed with "sour water" (ië asam) composed of water mixed with the juice of the lime (srëng), cummin (jara or jéura putéh) and kunyèt, and boiled down to a paste. After this has dried, the mites (kumeun) which are supposed to cause the ulcers are killed by rubbing the patient with beudaʾ (bědak) mixed with turmeric or lime-juice. To counteract the evil effects of this
- ↑ Where a measure is prescribed, this is done in precisely the same way as by the dukuns in Java; cf. A. C. Vorderman's Kritische beschouwingen over Dr. C. L. Van der Burg's "Materia Indica (Batavia 1886), p. 24.
- ↑ See my Mekka, Vol. II pp. 321–22.
- ↑ We have already (Vol. I pp. 416–17) described the purely superstitious practices in regard to small-pox.
