“Why, madam, of urtication,” replied the doctor, “the man had undergone, somehow or other, a most severe flogging with nettle-leaves.”
“Nettle-leaves!” exclaimed van Gulpendam, breaking into the conversation, his interest being thoroughly aroused at the doctor’s words. “These things,” he continued, “are called in Javanese, I think, Kamadoog—are they not, doctor?”
“Precisely so, Resident, you are quite right,” was the surgeon’s reply.
“Pray, doctor, do go on with your story,” said van Gulpendam. “Ten knots an hour if you please.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “that foolish young fellow might have let me finish my dinner in peace. There was nothing to be done in the case but what the people of the dessa had done already, the parts most afflicted had to be covered with sirih-chalk and the other parts with oil. It was very simple. The man was, of course, in a burning fever, but I need not have been disturbed for that, there are antifebrilia and antidinika in abundance in store, he might have administered them without calling me in.”
“And how long,” asked van Gulpendam, somewhat eagerly, “do the effects of such an urtication, as you call it, last?”
“Oh, that is impossible to say, that depends entirely upon how the nettle has been applied. This patient of ours has had an uncommonly heavy dose of it, and, in my opinion, the fever will last some forty-eight hours. Then, I hope, it will abate, but it will be quite a fortnight before the man is on his legs again.”
“A fortnight,” said van Gulpendam, with a frown. “Why, that is a long time.”
“Yes,” said the surgeon, “it will be quite a fortnight, and then only if all goes well.”
“And tell me,” continued the Resident, “will it leave any serious consequences?”