Chapter MOORUM to MORT-DE-CHIEN of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

hours or less.”—Acosta, Tractado, 27.

1598.—“There reigneth a sicknesse called Mordexijn which stealeth uppon men, and handleth them in such sorte, that it weakeneth a man, and maketh him cast out all that he hath in his bodie, and many times his life withall.”—Linschoten, 67; [Hak. Soc. i. 235; Morxi in ii. 22].

1599.—“The disease which in India is called Mordicin. This is a species of Colic, which comes on in those countries with such force and vehemence that it kills in a few hours; and there is no remedy discovered. It causes evacuations by stool or vomit, and makes one burst with pain. But there is a herb proper for the cure, which bears the same name of mordescin.”—Carletti, 227.

1602.—“In those islets (off Aracan) they found bad and brackish water, and certain beans like ours both green and dry, of which they ate some, and in the same moment this gave them a kind of dysentery, which in India they corruptly call mordexim, which ought to be morxis, and which the Arabs call sachaiza (Ar. hayzat), which is what Rasis calls sahida, a disease which kills in 24 hours. Its action is immediately to produce a sunken and slender pulse, with cold sweat, great inward fire, and excessive thirst, the eyes sunken, great vomitings, and in fact it leaves the natural power so collapsed (derribada) that the patient seems like a dead man.”—Couto, Dec. IV. liv. iv. cap. 10.

c. 1610.—“Il regne entre eux vne autre maladie qui vient a l’improviste, ils la nomment Mordesin, et vient auec grande douleur des testes et vomissement, et crient fort, et le plus souvent en meurent.”—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 19; [Hak. Soc. ii. 13].

1631.—“Pulvis ejus (Calumbac) ad scrup. unius pondus sumptus cholerae prodest, quam Mordexi incolae vocant.”—Jac. Bontii, lib. iv. p. 43.

1638.—“…celles qui y regnent le plus, sont celles qu’ils appellent Mordexin, qui tue subitement.”—Mandelslo, 265.

1648.—See also the (questionable) Voyages Fameux du Sieur Victor le Blanc, 76.

c. 1665.—“Les Portugais appellent Mordechin les quatre sortes de Coliques qu’on souffre dans les Indes ou elles sont frequentes…ceux qui ont la quatrième soufrent les trois maux ensemble, à savoir le vomissement, le flux de ventre, les extremes douleurs, et je crois que cette derniere est le Colera- Morbus.”—Thevenot, v. 324.

1673.—“They apply Cauteries most unmercifully in a Mordisheen, called so by the Portugals, being a Vomiting with Looseness.”—Fryer, 114.

[1674.—“The disease called Mordechi generally commences with a violent fever, accompanied by tremblings, horrors and vomitings; these symptoms are generally followed by delirium and death.” He prescribes a hot iron applied to the soles of the feet. He attributes the disease to indigestion, and remarks bitterly that at least the prisoners of the Inquisition were safe from this disease.—Dellon, Relation de l’Inquisition de Goa, ii. ch. 71.]

1690.—“The Mordechine is another Disease…which is a violent Vomiting and Looseness.”—Ovington, 350.

c. 1690.—Rumphius, speaking of the Jack-fruit (q.v.): “Non nisi vacuo stomacho edendus est, alias enim…plerumque oritur Passio Cholerica, Portugallis Mordexi dicta.”—Herb. Amb., i. 106.

1702.—“Cette grande indigestion qu’on appelle aux Indes Mordechin, et que quelques uns de nos Français ont appellée Mort- de-Chien.”—Lettres Edif., xi. 156.

Bluteau (s.v.) says Mordexim is properly a failure of digestion which is very perilous in those parts, unless the native remedy be used. This is to apply a thin rod, like a spit, and heated, under the heel, till the patient screams with pain, and then to slap the same part with the sole of a shoe, &c.

1705.—“Ce mal s’appelle mort-de-chien.”—Luillier, 113.


The following is an example of literal translation, as far as we know, unique: 1716.—“The extraordinary distempers of this country (I. of Bourbon) are the Cholick, and what they call the Dog’s Disease, which is cured by burning the heel of the patient with a hot iron.”—Acct. of the I. of Bourbon, in La Roque’s Voyage to Arabia the Happy, &c., E.T. London, 1726, p. 155.

1727.—“…the Mordexin (which seizes one suddenly with such oppression and palpitation that he thinks he is going to die on the spot).”—Valentijn, v. (Malabar) 5.

c. 1760.—“There is likewise known, on the Malabar coast chiefly, a most violent disorder they call the Mordechin; which seizes the patient with such fury of purging, vomiting, and tormina of the intestines, that it will often carry him off in 30 hours.”—Grose, i. 250.

1768.—“This (cholera morbus) in the East Indies, where it is very frequent and fatal, is called Mort-de-chien.”—Lind, Essay on Diseases incidental to Hot Climates, 248.

1778.—In the Vocabulary of the Portuguese Grammatica Indostana, we find Mordechim, as a Portuguese word, rendered in Hind. by the word badazmi, i.e. bad-hazami, ‘dyspepsia’ (p. 99). The most common modern Hind. term for cholera is Arab. haizah. The latter word is given by Garcia de Orta in the form hachaiza, and in the quotation from Couto as sachaiza (?). Jahangir speaks of one of his nobles as dying in the Deccan, of haizah, in A.D. 1615 (see note to Elliot, vi. 346). It is, however, perhaps not to be assumed that haizah al ways means cholera. Thus Macpherson mentions that a violent epidemic,