1 OF THE PUNJAUB. 46
2 SO frequently fatal as the low state of medical
3 knowledge among the Punjaubee practitioners
4 would lead people to suppose. Certain old-wife
5 remedies, such as decoction of the chicoree plant,
6 are used with eflfect in combating jaundice, and
7 it is not unusual to assail cholera with doses of
8 the juice of onions, and dysentery with powdered
9 charcoal or burnt cork. The deaths from disease
10 throughout the army do not exceed one per cent.
11 per annum ; while in the upper regions of
12 Kashmir, Ladakh, &c., the proportion is even
13 smaller; in fact, Kashmir, in spite of the peri-
14 odical humidity of the atmosphere, boasts the finest
15 climate in the world. The deaths from wounds
16 and contusions are of course more frequent, for
17 the science of surgery is as yet but little under-
18 stood in the Punjaub, and nature, therefore, is
19 generally obliged to act for herself.
20 If the Punjaub be not equal in fertility to the
21 provinces of India under British rule, it is second
22 only to the most favoured of those districts, and
23 were a few of the various improvements in the
24 art of manuring and cultivating the soil which
25 scientific men and zealous agriculturists have
26 introduced throughout the United Kingdom and
27 the colonies once applied to the Punjaub, it is
28 not unsafe to predict that the fruits of the land
29 would soon be as unrivalled for their quality as
30 their abundance.