Hindu Medical Practice in Sixteenth-Century Western India: Evidence from Portuguese Sources Author(s): M. N.

PEARSON Reviewed work(s): Source: Portuguese Studies, Vol. 17, HOMAGE TO CHARLES BOXER (2001), pp. 100-113 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41105162 . Accessed: 03/12/2012 15:58
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in Sixteenth-Century HinduMedicalPractice Western India:Evidence from Sources Portuguese

M. N. PEARSON
Thereare many studies ofayurvedic medical in Indiain theperiod practice before thearrival ofEuropeans, butmostoftheseare based on normative suchas thoseofSusruta and Caraka.1These tellus quitea lotabout texts, whathealersin theayurvedic weremeantto do, and thesortsof system information received from their texts,but they give almost no they inother information on actualpractice; didhealers follow thetexts, words, or was thererathera mixture of information fromthe textsand folk observawiththesetwo in turnbeinginfluenced knowledge, byempirical ofthis:'The instructions tion?A. L. Bashamprovides a cautioussummary been of thetextbooks can onlybe takenas normative, and not as having universally applied'.2 care in Goa to western little about health India,we knowvery Turning claims that beforethe Portuguese long beforethe conquest.Figueiredo in of weretaught all branches medicine, including Portuguese knowledge, of brahmins. These of higherlearning, and in settlements institutions is so fragmentary from students farand wide.3His information attracted medicine and other between as to be oflittle use,forwe cannotdistinguish We can assume that healers in Goa were often scholarly disciplines. was supplemented andtheir morebook-based brahmins, bylocally practice We have and nostrums byvillagewomenhealers. dispensed proven recipes in healthcare, or of stateinvolvement almostno evidenceof hospitals, the All we haveis one reference ofthePortuguese. before thecoming (from forthepoor, relief whichprovided eleventh to a houseof mercy, century)
See, for example, O. P. Jaggi's numerous works in the series 'History of Science and Technologyin India', especiallyMedicinein Medieval India (Delhi: Atma Ram, 1977),on yunani and Indian Systemof Medicine (Delhi: Atma Ram, 1974), on ayurvedicmedicine.The medicine, is by A. L. Basham, 'The Practiceof Medicine in Ancientand Medieval best modernsummary India', in Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study, ed. by Charles Leslie (Berkeley: of California Press, 1976), pp. 18-43. Two older, classic, accounts of ayurvedic University medicineby westernorientalistsstill have detail of great value: Jean Filliozat, The Classical Doctrineof Indian Medicine: Its Originsand its GreekParallels(Delhi: MunshiramManoharlal, Press, JohnsHopkins University 1964); HeinrichRobert Zimmer,Hindu Medicine (Baltimore: 1948). For the state of researchtoday on traditionalIndian medicine see Studies on Indian ed. by G. Jan Meulenbeld and Dominik Wujastyk(Groningen: Medical History, Forsten,1987); most relevantto this study is T. J. S. Patterson,'The Relationshipof Indian and European theSixteenth Practitioners of Medicine from Century', pp. 119-29. Basham,p. 25. Medicine in Goa accordingto huropean sources in the John M. de Figueiredo, Ayurvedic Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries',Bulletinof the Historyof Medicine, 58 (1984), 225- 32 (p. 226). 1

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of a local kingin Goa established sick and pilgrims, by a chiefminister Velha.4 information about practiceas opposed to We do have considerable is quite or Muslim medicine. Such information as yunani theory regards in Fazl's Ain-i of Babur and Abul in the Memoirs both Jahangir, copious as the and in other Persian texts such Tibbi-Sikandari, Akbari, many of SikandarLodi. Our concernhoweveris written underthe patronage records from the withHindu practice, and hereit seemsthatPortuguese to those us with accounts which are sixteenth century comparable provide butwhichrelateto from and other theMughalemperors Mughalsources, Hindu practice. So farthesePortuguese sourceshave been littlestudied, but it is mycontention, whichI hope will be confirmed by the material inthisarticle, as witness accounts later that are valuable eye they extremely ofactualmedical practice. sourcescan be usedas 'objective' and This is notto saythatPortuguese 'neutral'accounts.Thereis first theobviousand generally acknowledged of usingtherecords of a colonialpowerto describe the society difficulty In particular, NormanOwen has reminded us of the whichit dominated. of historical difficulties accountsof illness.All of these are of course transmitted throughculture,in our case Portuguese.Also, diseases themselves aremutable, so that thesources be describing a syndrome might sickness whichno longerexists,such as the mysterious Englishsweating whichcame and wentin thesixteenth each accountis Further, century.5 based on assumptions about whatillnessmeant, different something very in sixteenth-century Goa as comparedwithtoday.Finally, some diseases are moredramatic(choleraespecially)than others.Owen distinguishes betweencrisis mortality and backgroundmortality. The former, the dramatic and much describedcauses of mortality, include cholera, and various 'fevers',such as malaria and typhoid. smallpox,influenza ofdeathswerein factcaused bytheless However, perhaps three-quarters of ailments, suchas tuberculosis, glamorous background category dysenand infantile diarrhoea.6 tery There is anotherwhole category of minefields in the area of medical in general. It is too easy to be overly influenced history by whatwe think are modern medicalmethods, and to testthepastin accordance withwhat withonly a spotty in medicine we, social historians anyway, expertise
4 'Goa Pr-Portuguesa', 12 (1963),139-259; and 13/ Studia, JooManuelPacheco Figueiredo, ia (1965), 105-225(p. 160). remanaorauaei,1nestructures civilization ana ofeveryday Life,1neLimns ofwe rosswie, 1 (London: TheEuropean Collins, Capitalism, I5th-i8th 1981), Century, pp. 78-88;E. L.Jones, Miracle Press, 1981), (Cambridge: Cambridge University pp. 140-41. introduction Asta:explorations in octal, Medicaland , inueatnand Diseasein outheast ed. by Norman G. Owen (Singapore: Oxford Press,1987), Demographic History, University pp.4 and 12.

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Wearclaimsthat is 'correct' and 'scientific' think today.Andrew practice inhisedited collection ofstudies:
inpast which valuesofthemedical The nineteenthandtwentieth-century profession to condemn to earlier ofmedicine had beenapplied quacks, empirics, history periods In theprocess a much richer havebeendiscarded. andreligious practitioners magical medical world hasbeenuncovered.7 All thissaid, it is stillmycontentionthat several Portugueseaccounts of have considerable Hindu medicinein westernIndia in the sixteenth century

of Hindu medical a history to write value. I am not,of course,venturing aim is to demonstrate more modest much at this time;my merely practice of in the absence the value of Portuguese ones, for records, indigenous indeed this time. Nor in certain areas at diseases about certain knowledge sources which in with for fact we are is 'Hindu' quiteappropriate, dealing in varied health care which butrather nota unity are describing implicitly between different differentiate our sourcesoften two ways.First, regions, with so thatwe have Hindu healersin Malabar dealingquite differently from thearea aroundGoa, as compared Canarins with diseaseas compared informed of again with Gujarati practice.Second, we are sometimes refers to morebook-based and thispresumably 'brahmin' healing practice, ifone likes, as compared ofHindumedicine the'GreatTradition' methods; with a host of locally-derived techniquesand drugs which could be folktraditions. to be regionally-specific considered and by far the most of this latter, We have an excellent description in southern his travels of in account Tavernieri of sort healing important, We can assumethatthiswould also India in themid-seventeenth century. ofGoan practice. standforan accurate description
when the rains have fallenand it is the season forcollecting As forthe commonalty, fromthe towns and plants,mothersof familiesmay be seen going in the mornings fordomesticdiseases. It villagesto collectthesimpleswhichtheyknow to be specifics is true that in good towns there are generallyone or two men who have some or at a in themarket-place each morning who seat themselves knowledgeof medicine, eitherpotions or plasters,to those who cornerof the streetand administer remedies, feel the pulse, and when givingthe medicine,for come to ask for them. They first which theytake only the value of two farthings, theymumblesome words between teeth.8 their

introduction',in Medicine in Society: Historical Essays, ed. by AndrewWear (Cambridge: of 'untrainedquacks and Press, 1992), p. 2. Basham wrotedisparagingly CambridgeUniversity to use such judgmental charlatans' (p. 25) in ancient India, but today we would be reluctant rule For a generalaccountof villagepracticein Goa duringthewhole periodof Portuguese terms. see Ftima da Silva Gracias, Health and Hygiene in Colonial Goa: 1510-1961 (New Delhi: Concept, 1994). PP- 157-72. . ,_ _ . , _ , 0 Tavernier, ravels in India of Jean-aptisteiavermer,trans,by v. Kau ana Jean-Baptiste W. Crooke, 2nd edn, 2 vols (New Delhi: MunshiramManoharlal, 1977)h 240.

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now specifically to western India,two earlylistsof drugsand Turning for are be noted can they briefly, purelybotanical.Firstis a list plants and wheretheygrew,compiled drugs, datingfrom1516 of twenty-seven of coastal India,Tom Pires.Secondis a earlyobserver bytheimportant list of drugsby Simo Alvaresfromthe mid-sixteenth shorter century. in medical on the uses of these Neither includes anything practice.9 plants Indian plants used for There is also a later (1738) list of nearlyfifty Our two medicinal and foodpurposes written Jesuit.10 bya well-informed are worksbyGarciad'Orta and mainsourcesforHindu medicalpractice and oflistsofsimples and drugs Christavo da Costa. These booksconsist data in but both also include medicinal found western India, they plants to our concerns, forthey describe how thesemateria muchmorerelevant bothbythemselves, thatis thePortuguese, medicawereusedin treatment, and also byyunani and ayurvedic practitioners. Some background on d'Orta and Costa will help us to evaluatethe The New ChristianGarcia d'Orta usefulnessof their information. is considered to be the greatest scholarof sixteenth(1501-68) generally Goa. D'Orta was the first naturalist to study the major century Portuguese in main medicinal and other substances used coastal therapeutic plants of medicine, a pharmacist and a Asia,and was also a doctorand historian in interested and His famous savant wide-ranging history anthropology. e drogashe cousas medicinais de India,was work,Coloquios dos simples, one of the first books, and one of the veryfew secular books, to be inGoa inthesixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The rare(only published 11 edition is dated1563. twenty-four copiesareknown)first It is dividedinto fifty-seven each of themin the formof a chapters, conceitmeansthattheusual pattern is dialogueor colloquy.This literary that in each colloquy d'Orta's interlocutor, Dr Ruano, asked him a
9 Tom Pires,The Suma Orientalof Tom Piresand the Book of Francisco Rodrigues,trans, and ed. by Armando Corteso (London: Hakluyt Society, 1944), pp. 512-18; Jaime Walter, 'Simo Alvarese o seu rol das drogas da India', Studia io (1962), 117-49. This list has been thoroughly dans l'histoire analysed by Dr Arion Rosu, 'Les missionnaires des scienceset des techniquesindiennes(I). Un inditjsuite sur la phytothrapie indienneau XVIIIe sicle*,Journalof the European Ayurvedic Society, 3 (1993), 174-228. My thanks to Professor Rahul PeterDas forsendingme a copy of this article,and to Dr Rosu forproviding usefulcomments on an earlierversionof thepresent study. For d'Orta (and not Horta, da Orta, or Orta) see Garcia d'Orta, Coloquios dos simples e drogas e cousas medicinaisda India: reproduofacsimiladada edio impressaem Goa em 10 de abrilde 1563,comemorandoo quarto centenario da edio original,obra dada a estampapela Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa (Lisbon : Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, 1963); Garcia da Orta, Coloquios dos simples,e drogas he cousas medicinaisde India, ed. by Conde de Ficalho, 2 vols (Lisbon: ImprensaNacional, 1891-95); Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India by Garcia da Orta, trans,by ClementsMarkham (London, Sotheran,1913). Especiallyimportant is C. R. Boxer,Two Pioneersof Tropical Medicine: Garcia d'Orta and Nicolas Monarde (London: in Hispanic &c Luso-BrazilianCouncils, 1963). See also Daya de Suva's excellentThe Portuguese Asia: An annotatedbibliography in Asia, 1498-C.1800 of studieson Portuguesecolonial history no. 2336, pp. 252-53. (Zug: IDC, 1987h entry

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D'Orta methods?'. question,such as 'Do Hindu doctorsuse Portuguese from time to answer. Other characters also then the time, appear provided who is introduced for the sole and a Hindu doctor suchas a servant girl Each dealt with one of the of d'Orta. drug colloquy purpose singing praises the drug,said whereit grew,and or simple.In each case he described but he on its therapeutic use. Most of themwerevegetable, commented also dealt with ivoryand diamonds.It is an excellentcomprehensive notjust of Indianmateria medicaand botanyin general, study empirical in he was a famous doctor Goa, medicine, sixteenth-century although as the physician of the Royal Hospital at the timeof St Francis serving to thePortuguese Xavier'sstayin Goa in theearly1540s,and ministering eliteofthetown. Even in termsof European practiceof the time,d'Orta's medical of knowledgewas not advanced. This can be seen in his description in and all classes cholera cholera.Goa was hitby a major epidemic 1543; that is the monsoon period. The ages were struckby it that winter, who were and of everyhundred doctorscould do nothing, Portuguese victimswere even twenty Twelve, fifteen, affected, only ten survived. an Afonso de Sousa, evenordered Martim each day.The governor, buried D'Orta thecause of theaffliction.12 to find attempt autopsyin a fruitless cholerain India; in the Coloquios he was the first Europeanto describe whathe saw in mentions theHinduand Arabicnamesforit,and compares therewas a toxic Goa with what he knew of Europe. He considered or bytoo whichhad to be expelled.It was caused byovereating, humour He notedthatthe local vaidyasused ricewith muchsexual intercourse. pepperand cardamom,cauterizedthe feetof the patient,tied up the d'Orta As to fevers, to theeyes.13 limbsand appliedlongpeppers patient's and purging, withbleeding fevers and treated followed Europeanpractice and rich foods. Of opium he noted that its long termuse produced But he also claimed despiteitspopularuse as an aphrodisiac. impotence, This was because its use thatthe use of opium could help conception. As delayedejaculationby the male by 'slowingdown his imagination'. the bothcomplete womenare slowerin 'theact ofVenus'thismeant'they act at one time.[. . .] The opium also opens the channelsby whichthe so thatthey thebrain,by reasonof itscoldness, seed comesfrom genital theact simultaneously.'14 complete He Clearlywe mustnot maketoo muchof d'Orta's medicalexpertise. of thefirst in Europeanpractice seemsto have beenthoroughly grounded
12For a dramatic see Gaspar Correa, Lendas da India, 4 vols (Lisbon: Academia real description das sciencias,1858-66), iv, 288-89. " See d to coloquios or nordexim in 1543 (references Urta, Coloquios, no. 17 tora description in thetextare to thetranslation by Markham).

no.41. Coloquios,

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The maininfluences on hismedicalthinking halfof thesixteenth century. and ones: werethethoroughly Galen, Aristotle, Hippocrates predictable His book IbnSina.The basiswas whatmaybe calledhumoural pathology. varioussimplesand goes intoveryelaboratedetailto workout whether or theplant or cold or moist or wet. were warm hot, dry Concerning drugs do he was asked,'In whatdegree 'anarcardo'('semecarpus anarcardium') which he that some it warm and to youplace dry?' responded
inthesecond ofthethird; butneither warm anddry; others part placeitinthefourth, It therefore does ofthese when itis clearly notso warm anddry. me,for satisfy green itas warm anddry as someother suchas pepper, notappear reasonable to make spices, is placedinthethird which degree.15

of his time.He did D'Orta neverwentbeyondthe standardauthorities correct andcriticize these authorities on occasion, oncefor writing example 'letnotanytextofanyauthor [. . .] denywhatmyown eyeshaveobserved me with Dioscorides or for I do not but the truth not Galen, say Frighten is seenwhenhisinterlocutor, and whatI know.'A similar rigour empirical Dr Ruano,quotedto himtheopinion ofsomeItalianfriars. D'Orta replied: in 'I do notwantFriars the as reprehenders However,he except pulpit'.16 never the fundamental Eurogoverning paradigms premodern questioned medical practice. pean A possiblereasonforthisconservatism was theconstraining factthat d'Orta was a New Christian, and indeedapparently a farfrom convinced convert. Bornin 1501,he studied at theSpanishuniversities of Salamanca and Alcalde Henares, where hismedical consisted ofmemorizing training Galen and Ibn Sina. Subsequently d'Orta taughtat Lisbon Hippocrates, from forIndia. It seemsvery he left thathisdeparture for 1526until likely Goa in 1534, as the personalphysician of the later governor, Martim Afonsode Sousa, was a result of increasing intolerance in Portugal. Two he leftthe Inquisition was set up in Lisbon,and was in full yearsafter four he was forced to stepcarefully swing yearslater.As a New Christian as thisnew age of intolerance As a result, themassive beganin Portugal. thatwas the Coloquios was generally compilation ignoredin Portugal, it was widelyused in otherpartsof Europe in the late-sixteenth though and subsequently, thanksto a Latin translation which went century
15 Coloquios, no. 5; compare no. 12 fora similarlearned and somewhat circular(to modern eyes)discussion. Coloquios, nos. 9 and 30. See especiallyBoxer, Two Pioneers,pp. 7-13; Georg Schurhammer, FrancisXavier: His Life,His Times, 3 vols (Rome: JesuitHistoricalInstitute, 1977), 11, 203; and M. B. Barbosa and J. Caria Mendes, 'Garcia d'Orta, pioneer of tropical medicine and his descriptionsof cholera in his Coloquios (1563)*, in Proceedings of the XXIII International Congress of the History of Medicine, 2 vols (London: Wellcome Instituteof the History of Medicine,1974), H12.58-59.

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in 1567 in Antwerp.17 five the first one beingpublished editions, through from this He died in D'Orta himself suffered intolerance. posthumously and his in he was condemned as a the but 1580 Jewby 1568, Inquisition, been remains at an auto de f,A sister had actually weredug up and burnt in in his burnt Goa the after death. the by Inquisition year Forus d'Orta'smainvalueis hisaccounts ofindigenous medical practice. or hakims, and He knewof yunanimedicine from its local practitioners, withthesepeople at the courtof the Nizam had a cordialrelationship more D'Orta infact claimsthathiscureswereoften ShahsinAhmadnagar. efficacious thanthoseof the Muslims.The generalpointis thathe was thanto ayurvedic, and thisforthe to yunani methods muchmoreattuned he quotes,suchas Galen,Ibn obviousreasonthatmanyof theauthorities indeedIbn Sina and al-Rhazi,are also primetextsforyunanimedicine; There was then a large were of course Muslim healers. and al-Rhazi Sing of the and that his of between Europeanknowledge degree commonality for from Hindu healers more to learn He had much yunani practitioners. more different from his was discrete their while not own, totally system, the abilitiesof the local than the yunanione. He usuallyappreciated theircures as often vaidyas with whom he had contact,considering of the vast and he had no knew. to those he However, inkling superior as Susruta and Caraka names such Great ancient theory. bodyofayurvedic the actual medicine was All knew of Hindu he to him. were unknown knewno in Goa. He informed healers not verywell of possibly practice in sixteenth the Sassetti indeed Sanskrit; (seebelow),was theonlyEuropean to learn this language.He claimed that the Hindu to attempt century and custom'butin fact to experience doctors 'are menwho cureaccording this merelyshows that he was unaware of the verygreat ayurvedic the generations whichwas passed on through tradition by its scholarly followers.18 In a to othermedicalsystems. D'Orta had a quite objectiveattitude to diverse well his attitude particularly generalpassage whichdescribes theKingof Ahmadnagar, he notedhow his patient, medicalknowledge, him inArabic, and I taught and medicines methenamesofillnesses 'taught often much'.The Hindudoctors thesameinLatin,which pleasedhimvery methods usedPortuguese too, bled never andthey is bleeding, Forthey notcorrectly. ofthem Butmost saythere andleeches usedcupping-glasses, butthey intheland; wewere before [. . .] sawing
17On the spread of d'Orta's book see Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, 3 vols of Chicago Press,1965-93), 1,192-95, and in, 457, whereit is notedthatthe (Chicago: University in 1642, is closely first Dutch book on tropical medicine,by Bontius,publishedposthumously modelledon d'Orta. For an excellentaccount of medical scholarshipin Portugalin thesixteenth see Lgia Bellini,'Notes on Medical Scholarshipand the Broad IntellectualMilieu in century Studies,15 (1999), 11-41. Sixteenth-century Portugal',Portuguese 18 Book 3, 541. Coloquios, no. 36. On Sassettisee Lach, 1,477, and 11,

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were never tolookat waters I cantell accustomed [i.e.do urinalysis]. they youthat cure cantell whether there isfever ornot from the well, they dysentery very you pulse, andwhether itis weak orstrong, andwhat is the humour that whether itis offends, blood orheat orphlegm, ormelancholy; andthey a good for obstruction. remedy give Sometimes he says,suchas getting theheat they classify things incorrectly, or dryness of particular It must be remembered here that drugswrong. Hindu medicine also dependedon thenotionof humours, albeitslightly different ones from thoseof theEuropeanand Muslimtraditions, which are remarkably similar.19 He considered thattheir of knowledge anatomy was veryweak. However,d'Orta himself took manythings fromboth and In healers. he would ayurvedic yunani general try Europeanmethods if but these failed he would then use 'brahmin' ones.20 Indeed he first, claimed that he was the best informed healer in Goa, forin the modestly he has a Hindu doctor 'Dr Orta knows better thanall ofus; say Coloquios for we onlyknowtheGentios[se.Hindu],buthe knowsChristians, Moors and Gentios better than us all.'21 [sc.Muslim], We knowmuchlessaboutourother Christavo da Costa. He authority, arrived in Goa in theyearof d'Orta's death,and in 1569was a doctorin the Royal Hospital in Cochin.22Modern librariesoften list him as 'CristobalAcosta, ca. 1515-ca. 1592'. His book in Englishwas called on Drugsand Medicinesof East India (1578). In some wayshis Treatises work is more usefulto us than is d'Orta's. Costa has more on Hindu fromhis long medicine, thoughless on Muslim,whered'Orta profited association withthecourtof theNizam Shahs.Costa, on theotherhand, notesin a typical doctorin Cochinabout passagethathe askeda brahmin somelocal cures.This brahmin was a friend of Costa's, and very popular of Cochinand also themany amongboththelocal inhabitants Portuguese who livedthere.23 He saysmoreabout thehealing of thedrugs properties he describes, whiled'Orta is morebotanical.He also, unliked'Orta most of the time,differentiates betweendifferent Hindu systems in different areas. Thus brahmin, Canarin and Malabar treatments are specified.24 was similarto d'Orta's. He also However,Costa's generalbackground
19 Medicine', p. 231. Coloquios, no. 36; Figueiredo, 'Ayurvedic and mixing:'FirstContacts between Coloquios, no. 36. See myfuller studyof acculturation Indian and European Medical Systems:Goa in the SixteenthCentury',in Warm Climates and Western Medicine: the Emergenceof Tropical Medicine, 1500-1900, ed. by David Arnold,The Wellcome InstituteSeries in the History of Medicine (Amsterdam:Editions Rodopi, 1996), to the rulerof Ahmadnagarsee Coloquios, nos 11 and 24. It is pp. 20-41. On d'Orta ministering not reallymybrief to pronounceon the'objective' truth of d'Orta's work,but I should note here thatwhile bleeding,thegreatstaple of European practice,was indeed not done in the ayurvedic thereis evidenceof Hindu doctorsusine urinalvsis fordiagnosticDurooses. tradition, 21 Coloquios, no. 54. Tratado das drogas e medicinasdas India Orientais,por Christovoda Costa, ed. by Jaime Walter(Lisbon:Juntade Investigaes do Ultramar, 1964), p. 125 (hereafter 'Costa'). 23 Costa, p. 28. 24 Costa, pp. 23 and 28.

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and the classical authorities. on humouralpathology, reliedessentially was between hotand cold as he thought Thus canafistula ('cassia fistula') while in of in first terms the humidity, degree regardstemperature werecold and dryintheseconddegree.25 tamarinds Earlierscholarsdismissedhis work by claimingthat all he did was illustrations. summarize d'Orta, thoughhis book did includenumerous he knew of and usedd'Orta, while has shown that Donald Lach However, Costa describes For thetwo books do differ forty-seven widely. example, are not mentioned and of thesefourteen by d'Orta, whilenineof plants, a His modern d'Orta's are not in Costa.26 editor, JaimeWalter, provides material he does include As noted of this matter. discussion above, good from whichdiffers based on hisown experience, d'Orta,and supplements a copy,with himin otherways,yetmuchof his workis indeedmerely on opium of d'Orta. For example,the discussion or deletions, additions the notion of but above is opiumdelaying by Costa, reproduced quoted to Not thatCosta tries is left out.27 and so fostering ejaculation conception he on 'turbito'('ipomoea turpethium') hidehis sources.In his discussion on d'Orta, saysthathe has notseenthisplant,so he is relying specifically leads with Of all the authorshe quotes,d'Orta who had.28 ninety-seven Dioscorideswithforty-five, followed citations, byIbn Sina withfifty-five, and Galenwiththirty-eight. forty-one, Serapiowith we about Hindu practice, information Whenwe turnto theirspecific There cholera. and especially on fevers, material mostuseful find dysentery whichis noted muchothercuriousand obscureinformation, is, however, One generalmatterthat Costa pointedout was that Hindus, briefly. the theday without neverstarted bathing brahmins, vanias,all of them, three whole body.Muslimsdid thisat leastevery days,whileEuropeans in their ablutions. wouldhavebeenmuchmoreparsimonious notoriously In 1569theKingofCochinwas ill,buthe toldCosta thatevenifitcosthim hislifehe stillhad to takehisbathevery morning.29 and some similarities find some differences The two authorsgenerally Thus for'fevers'(a verygeneral between Europeanand Hindu practice. and evenit seems whichcould includemalaria,typhoid, indeed, category cholera),d'Orta likedto feedpeople up, and combinethiswithbleeding fortenor evenfifteen their butIndiansstarved and purging, days, patients and thenfedthemmangojuice,and laterwhole mangoes.On theother 'did notcurein anyother waythanto givenothing hand,Gujaratihealers
25 see also Rosu, p. 203, n. in. Costa, pp. 44, 86, 127. On tamarinds 26See Lach. 11. Book i, 4*6-17. 27 Costa, p. 279. Costa, p. 199. Costa, pp. 125-26.

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described to eat'.30However,Albuquerqueearlyin the century quite a weregivenmeatto in Malabar. Those who had a fever different treatment at and thengivenliquids.31 thenwerepurged, Pires,writing eat, and fish, eat fish said 'ifthey havefever almostthesametimeas Albuquerque, they eat have fevers . .] Our people whenthey and keepwashing themselves.[. and drink wineand arecured.'32 fatchickens and Indians.He said Costa notedtheuse of nutmeg bybothPortuguese ofthe useditforall cold illnesses doctors thatboth'Indian'and 'brahmin' of also for infirmities and other nervous and brainand paralysis, problems, folk Here we maybe approaching da madre').33 thewomb('enfermidades medicine as comparedwithayurvedic^ thoughto say this assumes the to thenow abandoned of the and the latter, relegates former superiority If has any of medical however such a differentiation margins practice. folk medicine. This bezoar stone must to then the famous value, belong in lore of was described the stone, manycultures, thought widely popular of incrustations to be theresult bodyin the building up arounda foreign Wild from Persia were of ruminant animals. stomach goats especially to be an in producing stones.Theywerebelieved fecund theseinvaluable one's antidote to a a means of excellent youth preserving poison, purgative, and so on. and virility, and also a curefortheplague,bladder complaints, cordialstone,a bezoar The Jesuits jealouslyguardedtherecipefortheir an amazinglistofother addedingredients. It was usedforheart stonewith and was a good exampleof theblendof Indianand European problems, Takenbackto Portugal, thesebezoarstoneswerewidely used by practice. theelitefortheir medicinal and amulet qualities.34 Aloes provideanother example.Hindu healersused it as a purgative, wounds.Whenmixed and also forkidney diseases, colics,and forhealing itwas called'mocebar', and was usedto curehorses and to kill with myrrh To cure wounds in generalone Malabar maggotsin humanwounds.35 method was to wash the wound in warmcoconutoil foran houror so twice a day.36Tabashir, or the bark milk fromwithinthe stems of was usedbyHindusto deal withover-heating, or either external bamboos, and also forfevers and dysentery.37 thegummy internal, Turpethin, partof
30Coloauios. no. '6. 31Afonso de Studia, 13/14(1965), Albuquerque, quoted in Figueiredo,'Goa Pr-Portuguesa', Tom Pires,p. 69.
Lx>sta, p. 23.

161-62.

Coloquios, no. 45; Costa, p. 103; Ann Maria Amaro, 'Goa's Famous Cordial Stone', Review For their of Culture,7/8 (1988-89), 82-103. My thanksto Fr Charles Borges forthis reference. use in Europe see Lach, 11, Book 1, 12. Coloquios, no. 2; and see Coloquios for a detailed account of Muslim purgingpractice, Ibn Sina's advice,also describedin Costa, p. 125. following nres, p. 69; Atonsode Albuquerque,quoted in figueiredo, Uoa l're-1'ortuguesa , p. 162.

no. 51. Coloquios,

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and as one of the a creeping plant,was used to reduceinflammation, a Another useful to ingredients produce purgative.38 plantwas 'anarcardo,' was widely usedin The of this fruit anarcardium'). juice 'dry' ('semecarpus ulcersand to all of Malabar in place of caustic.It was appliedto external cloth.39 whendyeing rotten and was also usedas a fixative teeth, in Goa forat was the killer to great dysentery According Figueiredo, to produce We havenotedseveral nostrums leasttwocenturies.40 purging, was diagnosed. usedwhendysentery and itseemsthatthese wereroutinely ofthisthere butregardless did thepurging notall healers first, Apparently Some useda to curepatients and buildthem werethen several methods up. Indians nor mixture. Neither of others a more complicated type dog-bane, rice was wine. Rather broth, kanji, provided, any Portuguese prescribed Canarin Costa said all doctors, with chicken brahmin, piecessoakedinit.41 mixedwithbuttermilk and Malabari, used the skin or husk of nutmeg This was given twicea day,in the ('leiteazedo'), forall kindsofdysentery. was givenboiledricewithout and thenthepatient and at night, morning If theattackwas salt or butter (thatis, kanji)again mixedwithchicken. severeopium was also administered, thoughthis was done more by thanbyHindus.42 Muslims on this. Hindupractices between various differentiates D'Orta, however, from from was different method The Portuguese Malabari,and it differed is based on as the Malayalam. (I am not sure what this distinction oftheMalabar,now Kerala,region.) Malayalamis ofcoursethelanguage thanthePortuguese was muchmorerigorous The Malabar treatment one, d'Orta On thismatter whiletheMalayalismixedopiumwiththenutmeg. themcompared had muchto commend thatthenativemethods thought seemto be major there Here againhowever treatments.43 withPortuguese accountsboth in our sources,fortwo early-sixteenth-century differences coconutmilk, withfresh was treated young saythatin Malabar dysentery milder treatment.44 to a much which points was India in thesixteenth in Goa and western The greatkiller century ofa feared in their are united accounts cholera.Earlymodern presentation FrGodinhosaid itwas fataldisease.I offer and usually justtwoexamples: noted of hours',whileLinschoten 'so fatalthattheend comesin a matter and killeth is very that'thesicknesse common, they manya man,whereof

38 Coloquios, no. 54. Costa, p. 143. 40 'Goa Pr-Portueuesa'p. 176. Figueiredo, 41 no. 27. Coloquios, 42Costa, d. 28. 43 Coloquios, no. 27. 44 'Goa Pr-Portuguesa'p. 162. Pires,p. 69; Afonsode Albuquerque,quoted in Figueiredo,

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or neverescape'.45 an educatedman and a clergyman, hardly Ovington, reflected a Europeanconsensus cause and curewhenhe wrote concerning thatcholera('mordechine') is 'violent and Looseness, and which Vomiting is caus'd mostfrequently Excess of an of by Eatingparticularly Fish and Fleshtogether. It has beenCur'dbya Red-hot Ironclaptto theHeal ofhim thatis sick,so close thatit renders himuneasiebyitsnearness, it whereby leavesa Scarbehind it.'46 Therewereelevenoutbreaks of cholerain Goa between 1543and 1680. The first was theworst;we are toldthatof thoseafflicted, onlyone in ten survived.47 The Italian merchant Sassettidescribedit in Cochin in the
1580s: Thereis current here a certain diseasewhich killsa person injust24 hours and which is calledmordaxi, which is a revulsion of thestomach and of theentire bodywhich all thehumours onedies;and it itself; rejects quitthebodyandthebloodtoo,so that comesfrom much sweet much and from fruit, eating many pork, preserves, drinking muchwater;whencethe poor stomachs, when theyhave suffered much,throw on theground. themselves It is theaccident which makes itknown, that the suddenly losethesense oftouch intheir external so that feel ifthey patients they parts, nothing arestruck blowsorpierced with a needle.48

The VenetianManucci, a self-taught doctor, later in the seventeenth notedthatmort-de-chien, was themainkiller, cholera, century describing it as colicofthebowelswithvomiting and laxity. The bestcure,theusual one at thistime,was to burntheheel of thepatient witha red-hot iron

45 IntrepidItinerant:Manuel Godinho and his Journey fromIndia to Portugalin 1663, trans, and ed. by John Correia-Afonso(Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 38; J. H. van The VoyageofJohnHuyghenvan Linschotento theEast Indies,ed. by Arthur Coke Linschoten, Burnelland P. A. Tiele. 2 vols (London: HakluvtSociety. t88*. i. ik- x6. JohnOvington,A Voyageto Suratin the Year 1689,ed. by H. G. Rawlinson (London: Oxford Universitv Press/Milford. iq2q). dd. 204-0*. 47Alberto C. Germano da Silva Correia, La Vieille-Goa (Bastor: Tipografia Rangel, 1931), account in Documenta ndica, pp. 268-307. For theoutbreakof 1567see thecontemporary Jesuit ed. by J. Wicki et al (Rome: Institution HistoricumSocietas Iesu, 1948- ), vu, 384, letterof Fr Gomes Vaz, 12 December 1567. For theoutbreakof 1570 see Joo Manuel Pacheco de Figueiredo, 'Goa dourada nos sculos XVI e XVII: O hospitaldos pobresdo padre Paulo Camerte,esboo de sua reconstituio histrica', Studia,25 (1968), 136-40. 'On the FourthCentenaryof Filippo Sassetti (1540-1588): Scientific John Correia-Afonso, ObservationsfromCochin', Indica, 26 (1989), 15-24 (p. 19). Sassetti was the only sixteenthand he also talked withHindu healersand got one of century European to tryto learnSanskrit, them to translateSanskrittexts on pharmaceuticalsfor him. He spent most of his time in Malabar (1583-88) thoughhe died in Goa. He was a well-educatedand observantinquirer.See Book 3, 541. Lach, 1,477, and 11,

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In thisway thepain was allayedand thedischarge untiltheheatwas felt. and vomiting stopped.49 described ofthefeet The cauterization maywell bytwooftheseauthors was for d'Orta thePortuguese which havebeenan Indianmethod adopted, Indian treatment noted the and he to describe thefirst cholera, European the 1750sseemsto An accountfrom of applying a hot ironto the feet.50 sourceswhich say this was an Indian theseearlierPortuguese confirm itworked still theobserver thought quitewell: though remedy,
call disorderthey a mostviolent There is likewiseknownon theMalabar-coast chiefly, the Mordechin, which seizes the patient with such furyof purging,vomitingand hours.For this thatit will oftencarryhim offin thirty tormina[sic] of the intestines, than the actual the physiciansamong the nativesknow no more effectuall remedy, failsof a of whichrarely revulsion thepowerful cautery applied to thesoles of thefeet, salutary efficacy.51

used by Hindu doctorswas however One partof thetreatment widely Hindu doctorswould throw the not Portuguese. apparently pickedup by of the to in order of the the into gauge the intensity eyes patient pepper in Daman in what CharlesDellon described attack.This is presumably was gravely ill,but'theIndian girl Portuguese 1673,whenhe noteda young withpepper, her head covered had her of instead letting blood, physician, the I that assume be removed'.52 to caused whichI immediately pointwas for dead. were the react to did not thatifpatients given they up pepper First other measures. various with werecombined Thesetwotreatments We have his stomach. of was purgedof the contents the patient already of doing this.Costa said thatin the case of variousmethods described and young of tamarind that a mixture choleraIndian doctorsthought a good but mildpurge.In Goa local doctorsused a coconutoil provided of 'mirobolanos'('terminalia chebula') to purge for variety particular were ofthese thatmany We maynote,incidentally, cholera. agents purging knownto the Portuguese already,fromGalen and especiallyfromIbn to purge Costa said thatIndiansused canafistula Sina.53 ('cassia fistula') To clarify thestomach. whichwereaffecting thecholeraand thehumours
49Niccolao Manucci, Storiado Mogor, or Mogul India, trans,withintro.and notesbyWilliam 2nd edn, 4 vols (Calcutta: EditionsIndian, 1965-67), 11, 157. The word used forcholera in Irvine, the from or variantsthereof. Goa was mordexim Dalgado tellsus thattheword is local, deriving as above, of mort-de-chien. itto their term, Konkani modxior morxi.The Frenchlaterconverted See Sebastio Rodolfo Dalgado, Glossrio Luso-Asitico, 2 vols (Coimbra: Imprensa da 69-71, under 'mordexim'. Accordingto Rawlinson the word came Universidade,1919-21), 11, See Ovington,p. 204, n. 1. mordexim. thePortuguese theMarathi modashithrough from 50 no. 17. Coloquios, 51 fromAleppo JohnHenryGrose, A Voyageto theEast Indies . . . to whichis added A Journey 2nd edn,2 vols (London: 1772), 1,250. to Busserah,overtheDesert,by Mr. Charmichael, 52A. K. Priolkar, account. Dr Dlions The Goa Inquisition Bombay:Pnolkar, 1961), p. 14 ot 53 see Rosu, p. 191, n. 64. Costa, pp. 35, 43, 177. For myrobolan

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theblood a little rhubarb was used,and they often also gave somegrains ofcinnamon inorder to cureflatulence.54 on from thepurge, ifthepatients thenhad to survived, Following they be builtup again. The Hindus gave kanji,in thiscase a mixture of rice waterwithpepperand cuminseed, thatis cardamom,added. Canarin was considered to be thebestvariety to use; Costa notedthatboth pepper brahmin and Canarindoctors it to other D'Orta said that preferred types.55 the Hindus also bound up most of the body of the sufferer to prevent and administered He betel. added that 'all these are not cramps, things in are done The method reason, wanting they though roughly'. Portuguese allowed more food. Indians gave only kanji, but the again typically to first thepatient inorder to clearthestomach, Portuguese preferred purge and thenanointit withoil in orderto comfort it. After thischickenor could be eaten.56 partridge All this may well point to the difficulties of using these Portuguese sources as muchas to their value.It is truethatthey at leastin sometimes, the presentstate of my knowledge,appear to be contradictory and confused. It is very difficult to identify of the which many particular plants The diseasesthemselves are not alwayseasy to name,for theymention. forexample,could refer to a rangeof quite different maladies. 'fever', are all we and I this brief account will Nevertheless, have, they hope much more research in this so that we can to describe area, encourage begin Hindumedical as opposedto theory, inthisearly modern practice, period. University of New South Wales

54 Costa, p. 86. Coloquios, nos 17 and 46; Costa, p. 16. On cumminsee Rosu, p. 202, n. no.

no. 17. Coloquios,

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