Some superstitious beliefs occurring in theory and practice of Malay medicine
John D. Gimlette, Residency Surgeon of Kelantan, published this ethnographic-medical survey in 1913, drawing on his direct clinical encounters with Malay practitioners and patients in the Kelantan interior. The article documents the intersection of superstition and therapeutic practice among the “bomor” (medicine-man) class, arguing that many ostensibly magical prescriptions and quarantine customs possess a rational epidemiological or pharmacological logic that colonial medicine had yet to fully appreciate.
Summary
Gimlette’s account is organised around the practical encounters of a colonial surgeon who treated patients and investigated suspicious materials referred to him by the police. He distinguishes the “bomor” (the general practitioner of Kelantan, combining medicine with witchcraft) from the “pawang” (wizard), noting that the latter term is rarely used locally. The article moves from cases of deliberate witchcraft—such as a bowl of bones, wax, and a rusty nail buried beneath the Sultan’s bed chamber in 1910—to the more systematic native quarantine practices observed during the 1910 cholera epidemic in Kelantan. Gimlette, drawing on notes from W. H. Mackray (Assistant Adviser to the Government), describes the “pupoh kampong” (village quarantine, 30 days) and “pupoh rumah” (house quarantine, 3 days, extended to 5 by the bomors), complete with the ritual apparatus of strings, coco-nut leaves, bamboo clappers, and the specific “adat” (fine) payable for breach of quarantine.
The second half of the article turns to pharmacology, cataloguing the extraordinary polypharmacy of native prescriptions. Gimlette records a yaws remedy combining tiger kneecap, dugong bones, wild goat horns, realgar, and red sandalwood, and a universal antidote for native poisons made from goose wing bone, wild goat horn, and sea porcupine spine. He documents specific antidotes for cyanide of potassium (used by Malay goldsmiths as “potas”), for datura poisoning, and for the deliberate application of cobra-and-tortoise decoctions to cause baldness. A particularly detailed case involves a father and son in Kota Bharu who were drugged with a datura-gadong preparation during Ramadan, robbed while paralysed, and treated with a family charm of strung pebbles and fossils purchased from an Arab for fifty dollars.
Key Findings
- The “pupoh kampong” (village quarantine) lasted 30 days and was enforced by a “tali pupoh” (string with leaf twists) stretched across the main path, with a bamboo clapper that entrants had to strike; the “pupoh rumah” (house quarantine) lasted 3 days, which Gimlette induced the bomors to extend to 5 (pp. 29–30).
- The “adat” (fine) for breaching village quarantine comprised: 2 dollars cash, 1½ lbs. of nasi kunyit (saffron rice), 2½ yards of white cloth, 10 cents in pitis, and 3 skeins of white thread (p. 30).
- The yaws (“puru”) prescription combined tiger kneecap, dugong bones, goose bones, horns of Nemorrhaedus sumatrensis and Cervus unicolor, realgar (belerang bang), red sandalwood, and mempus harimau wood, ground in boiling rice water (p. 30).
- The cyanide of potassium antidote required the helmet of Rhinoplax vigil (hornbill), an elephant tusk, dugong bones, and the root of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (white variety), ground together (p. 30).
- The Kota Bharu charm consisted of nine strung pebbles (including crocodile stomach stones, a fossilised cockle, and a possible turquoise) plus a fossilised crab and an unidentified fossil, purchased from an Arab for 50 dollars; the other fossil had been bought for 70 dollars from an uncle of the present Sultan (p. 34).
- The “ikan sembilan” (Plotosus species) bones, steeped with goose bones in water, served as an antidote to the deliberate baldness poison made from a cobra (Naja tripudians) and tortoise decoction (p. 31).
Conclusion
Gimlette’s definitive takeaway is that the boundary between “superstition” and rational medicine in the Malay context is far more porous than colonial orthodoxy assumed. The native quarantine system, however it was ritually framed, functioned as an effective epidemiological barrier against cholera; the hornbill-bill antidote for cyanide poisoning acted as a direct emetic; and the “bezoar” stones, while pharmacologically inert, served a psychosomatic role in a therapeutic system that the colonial surgeon was only beginning to understand on its own terms.
Context
- Gimlette wrote as the Residency Surgeon of Kelantan, a colonial medical officer whose observations were shaped by his dual role as clinician and administrator; his tone is that of a sympathetic but ultimately external observer cataloguing “native” practice for a metropolitan readership.
- The article draws on direct clinical cases, police referrals, and the field notes of W. H. Mackray (Assistant Adviser to the Government, 1910), and is situated within the broader MBRAS/JSBRAS tradition of colonial ethnographic medicine that fed into the emerging discipline of tropical medicine in the early twentieth century.