Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/224

, or under the influence of mercury, would be committing an act of great indiscretion by taking a cold bath al fresco, yet natives bathe every day when so affected.

16. EXPOSURE OF THE DYING.—Ill-timed bathing is not the only instance of the religious laws of the country aggravating the diseases of the people, and adding to the bills of mortality. The practice of the Hindoos hurrying persons dangerously ill to the banks of the river, and exposing them in the open air, on a bed, with their feet hanging over in the water, and their bodies besmeared with the slime of the river, till the ordeal puts an end to their existence, must be considered as a frequent cause of death; and there can be no doubt that thousands of lives are by this unfeeling treatment taken away, that with proper nursing might have recovered. This custom, practised every day, equally repugnant to human nature as Sutteeism, is probably ten times more destructive than it was. The friends of a poor dependent,unfortunate widow, incited her to the commission of suicide, in order to rid themselves of a relation who might claim a maintenance among them; the friends of a person hopelessly ill, take advantage of his helplessness and his superstition, and hurry him off to the river as the most appropriate place to die, and if he should