Drugs, Health, Bodies and Souls in the Tropics ... - Ines G. Županov

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impossible task, but the that belief the Brahmans hold the keys to all Indian sciences
remained.
Rot and the demonic in colonial culture
In spite of such lofty goals such as acquiring and perfecting knowledge of
tropical flora, fauna, geography, linguistics and the like, the most pressing task for a
doctor, which Orta never forgot, was saving lives through successful cures of the most
common, yet deadly, illnesses such as fevers and diarrhea (câmara). 76 Following
closely the Galenic humoral theory, all diseases were attributed to the disturbance of
humors outside and inside the body: bad air, caused by piles of dead animal carcases,
excrement or garbage, or undigested food in one's own stomach. Public and personal
hygiene were directly responsible for the state of one's body and for the outbreak of
general epidemics. According to the contemporary accounts, the stench in the city of
Goa was quite unbearable because of the unsanitary practices, for example, leaving
excrement on the roof of the houses to be cleaned by wind, rain, birds or ants. 77 Even
well-to-do households had no toilets and their refuse was disposed of by Bhangis, all
belonging to a special caste of sweepers and chamber-pot bearers. 78 Village life was
no better and, according to one Jesuit missionary, the peasants lived in pigsties. 79
The tropics in general were considered as regions in which rot and
decomposition were endemic in both the ecological and moral senses. "You should
know that this land, at least along the coast, is too prone to putrefaction", explained
Orta to his readers. The rot was thus viewed as a climatic, not as a social and cultural
fact, as if the land itself produced vapors stimulating the decay of things and
institutions, such as their own Estado da Índia, as the Portuguese came to believe in
the second half of the sixteenth century. Rot was inherent to the tropics just as the
dwellers of such places, according to the humoral theory, had an increased sense of
smell. They spent huge amounts of money for perfumes, ointments and fragrant
flowers, according to Duarte Barbosa and many other contemporary travelers. 80 The
reverse side of this olfactory paradise was that they equally cherished, according to
Portuguese taste, malodorous things such as asafetida. Orta's little story is quite
instructive in this respect and spells out clearly his and his compatriots' taste:
"A Portuguese in Vijayanagara had a very valuable horse which kept on
breaking wind, and the king did not want to buy it from him. The Portuguese
cured it by feeding it this ymgu with flour. The king bought it as soon as it was
healthy and asked him how he had cured it. And he told him about ymgu. To
this the king said, do not be surprised, because this is the food of the gods, or
as the poets say the nectar. The Portuguese lowered his voice and responded in
Portuguese that it should better be called the grub of the demons." 81
76 Orta, vol. 2, p. 374, vol.1, 156..
77 Fryer, p. 152. See also Gracias, Fátima da Silva, Health & Hygiene in Colonial Goa, 1510-1961,
New Delhi, 1994, p. 68.
78 The name derived from bhang, an intoxicating liquid made of hashish. See Yule, H. and Burnell,
A.C., Hobson-Jobson, (London 1903), [henceforth: Hobson-Jobson], New Delhi, 1979, p.129. Orta,
vol. 1, pp. 95-100.
79 Duarte Leitão to the members of the Portuguese province, Goa, Nov. 16. 1570, Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon,
Fundo Geral, 4532, f. 81v.
80 Orta, vol.1, p. 71, p. 73-74. Oriental kings love flowers. Persian ambassador ’ Abd al-Razzāk also
talks about it. See Quatremere, E.M. (ed.), Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du
Roi, vol. XIV, part 1, Paris, 1843.
81 Orta, vol. 1, p. 81. Hīngu in Hindi.
Ines G. Županov, CNRS, Paris