Note (return) — Chapter XIII · VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, BY COMMODORE ROGGEWEIN, is 1721-1723.1 (continued 2)

All the water along this low flat coast, to the south of Cranganore, has the very bad quality of occasioning swelled legs to those who drink it. This disease sometimes only affects one leg, but sometimes both, and the swelling is often so great as to measure a yard round at the ancles. It occasions no pain, but great itching, neither does the swelled leg feel any heavier than that which occasionally remains unaffected. To avoid this disease, the Dutch who reside at Cochin, send boats daily to Virapell, from which they bring water in small casks of about ten or twelve gallons, to serve the city. This water is given free to the servants of the Company, but private persons have to pay six-pence for each cask-full, which is brought to their houses at that price. Still, however, both Dutch men and women are sometimes afflicted with this disease, and no means have hitherto been found out for prevention or cure. The old legend imputes this disease to the curse laid by St Thomas upon his murderers and their posterity, as an odious mark to distinguish them: But St Thomas was slain by the Tilnigue3 priests at Miliapoor in Coromandel, above four hundred miles from this coast; and the natives there have no touch of this malady.