severe malaria lives to dread it because the fever never quite seems
to go away. It may last for years, the symptoms returning again and
again after apparently having been cured. The fever can disap-
pear for fifteen days, or maybe a month; and then, just when one
thinks it’s finally cured, it resurfaces. Sometimes several months
may elapse before it returns.
I previously described how malarial fever caused in-laws to
lose patience with each other. If the son-in-law came down with it,
his wife’s parents soon became fed up with him. If one of his wife’s
parents had it, the son-in-law soon got fed up. The patient became
a burden on the rest of the family because – although he couldn’t
do any heavy work – he still ate a lot, slept constantly, and then
complained bitterly no end. Malaria is a most tiresome illness
which tries everyone’s patience. Its effect was compounded by the
fact that in those days there were no effective medicines for curing
malaria as there are today. A person contracting it just had to
wait for it to disappear on its own. If it refused to go away, it could
easily become a chronic condition, dragging on for years. Young
children who became infected usually had swollen, distended bel-
lies and pale, anemic complexions. Natives of the low-lying plains,
who had moved to settle in forested areas, tended to be the worst
victims of this strain of malaria. Indigenous forest inhabitants
were not immune, though their symptoms were seldom so severe
as those of people who came from open, lowland areas.
Malaria was also common among dhutanga monks, as they
normally liked to wander extensively through forested mountain
areas. Were this dreaded disease something valuable, something
to boast about, then I myself could boast with the best of them,
having suffered its devastating effects many times. It scares me
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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