Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c16.8

c16.8

It is singularly worth remarking, that there hardly ever was an instance of a native of the Island of St. Helena, man or woman, that was seized with this distemper in the natural way (when resident in Bengall) who escaped with life; although it is a known fact that the disease never yet got footing upon that Island. Clearly to account for this, is not an easy matter; I will venture, however, a few conjectures on the occasion. These people rarely migrate from the Island before they arrive at years of maturity; the basis of their diet there, from their infancy, is a root called *yam*, of a *skranshee* kind, a term they use to express its acrid, unwholesome qualities, which frequently subjects them to epidemic and dangerous dysenteries and sometimes epidemic putrid sore throats. The blood thus charged, must necessarily constitute a most unlucky habit of body to combat with any acute inflammatory disease whatsoever, but more especially of the kind under consideration (so frequently attended with a high degree of putrefaction) always fatal to these people, even in those seasons when the disease is mild and favourable to others: But indeed it is a general remark, that a St Helenian rarely escapes when seized with the smallpox in whatsoever part of the Globe he happens to reside. The same has been observed of the African Coffries, although I know not what cause to ascribe it to, unless we suppose one similar to that above mentioned, to wit, some fundamental aggravating principle in their chief diet. Be this as it may, that these two portions of the human species seem peculiarly marked as victims to this disease, is a fact indisputable, let the cause be what it will.