Happily those evil days have departed. Human bile is no longer used either for protective or medicinal purposes. It remains only as the subject of legend.
Besides this special and curious emetic the Cham produce the same effect by certain mechanical processes the originality of which merits detailed description.
When a sick man's stomach seems overladen with bile and the medicine man wishes to empty it completely, he stuffs a rag soaked in urine and other evil-smelling substances into the patient's mouth. He rams it down as far as it will go and then quickly withdraws it. Physical aversion and the irritation of the glottis produced by a foreign body immediately provoke a spasm of sickness. No doubt some milder emetic would have been equally successful.
I frequently doctored the Cham and I can bear witness that they make the best of patients. They took ipecacuanha, castor-oil, or sulphate of soda, as if they enjoyed them. When they came again they often brought me a present of a little candle in a curious candlestick made from the banana-plant. I learnt later that it was the custom to bring an offering of some kind in lieu of fee to the native doctors.
Suicide is very uncommon in these regions, where the means of life are within the reach of all, passions easily mastered, and an easy-going philosophy is practised from the cradle. The few who find life not worth living leave it with the help of opium which they mix with vinegar.
At present the native authorities throughout Indo-China have taken no steps to regulate the manufacture and sale of poisons. It is quite usual for the most virulent of these to be sold publicly in the open market, and it must be admitted that any regulations would probably be ineffective to stop the trade. Nature in Asia has always been lavish with toxic substances. Even if the sale of these were prohibited, anyone could find as many as he wished in the nearest forest. This abundance is undoubtedly responsible for the large and increasing number of murders by poison which distinguish the regions inhabited by the Cham. We ourselves, isolated in the bush, had to take the most elaborate precautions to prevent fatalities of this kind.
On our arrival in the country we were forewarned of the danger by the French resident magistrate of the province. He laid special stress on the risks run by young bachelors who attempted any intimacies with the native girls. The seducer, it appears, is marked out for destruction, even if he has only yielded to the blandishments of the woman. Further, many of the Cham poisons only work slowly and the mischief they cause in the system is frequently taken for disorders which follow anæmia and other illnesses, to which foreigners in this climate are peculiarly liable. One of my colleagues died from an attack of what we believed to be malaria. We all feel now that if an autopsy had been made we should probably have discovered that what we thought was cachexia was the effect of poison.
Besides being familiar with the nature and use of poisons the Cham are also expert in concocting stupefying drugs and narcotics of all kinds. They often poison the air of a room in which a patient is lying by blowing stupefying vapours through hollow canes inserted in the wattled walls. The effect of these fumes is to make the victim sleep more heavily and the criminals take advantage of this circumstance to rob him at their leisure.
I had a vivid personal experience of this diabolical procedure. One evening I arrived with my escort at a house which our coolies had built specially for us and where we were to stay several weeks. The furniture consisted of nothing more than a bamboo bedstead supporting a mattress of cotton wadding. My room was very narrow and the seven cases which contained my instruments and cooking utensils were all the furniture I needed in addition. I told my boy to push two of these cases under the bed in order to save space. We had been marching all day under a tropical sun and I flung myself on the mattress and fell asleep at once. I awoke, according to habit, at about four in the morning and was surprised to feel myself so cramped that I could hardly move. To add to my astonishment I could not find my matches which I always kept within reach. The case which I had placed to serve as a bedside table had likewise disappeared.
With great effort I rose from bed and stumbling at each step managed to get out of the house. My sole garment was my pyjamas, for my clothes had followed the matches. It was still dark and I soon collided with an obstacle which proved on investigation to be one of the cases. I was somewhat alarmed and called for my servants. No one answered. A feeling of overpowering drowsiness overcame me and I had just time to get back to my bed before I fell asleep again. When morning came my orderly came in to announce that six out of the seven boxes were scattered about the outskirts of our camp. Locks had been forced and all my papers, instruments, photographic plates and prints, and wallets ruthlessly thrown out after obvious examination. It was plain that the burglars had been hunting for bank-notes. Fortunately I had no money in the cash-box. I had left the few thousand piastres which constituted our reserve with a colleague, so the total haul did not amount to more than two silver bangles and a few gewgaws, which together were not worth more than ten piastres.