Note 126 — Chapter XIII · ANURADHAPURA AND MIHINTALE

May I be forgiven for referring to one small medical detail, attention to which has, I know, proved my own safeguard in many years of travel. The commonest of all forms of illness in tropical countries is diarrhœa; and the general impulse seems to be at once to check it by the use of brandy or chlorodyne, whereas common-sense might surely suggest that when Nature thus endeavours to throw off some irritant she ought rather to be helped in so doing. I therefore strongly recommend a small bottle of castor-oil in a wooden case as part of every traveller’s indispensable outfit and safeguard—quite as essential as quinine.