In The Small Prison Of Sampit, Which Is Built Of Iron-Wood, The Mortality From Beri-Beri Among The Inmates Was Appalling.

Nine men, implicated in the murder of two Chinese traders, in the course of eight months while the case was being tried, all died except a Chinaman who was taken to Bandjermasin.

I understood a new prison was about to be erected. It seems improbable that ironwood has any connection with this disorder, but Mr. Berger, manager of the nearby rubber plantation, told me the following facts, which may be worth recording: Six of his coolies slept in a room with ironwood floor, and after a while their legs became swollen in the manner which indicates beri-beri. He moved them to another room, gave them katjang idju, the popular vegetable food, and they soon recovered. He then replaced the ironwood floor with other material, and after that nobody who slept in the room was affected in a similar way.

I met in Sampit three Dayaks from the upper country of the Katingan on whom the operation of incision had been performed. According to reliable reports this custom extends over a wide area of the inland, from the upper regions of the Kapuas, Kahayan, and Barito Rivers in the east, stretching westward as far as and including the tribes of the Kotawaringin. Also, in the Western Division on the Upper Kapuas and Melawi Rivers, the same usage obtains. In Bandjermasin prominent Mohammedans, one of them a Malay Hadji, told me that the Malays also practise incision instead of circumcision. The Malays, moreover, perform an operation on small girls, which the Dayaks do not.

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