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village representative recalled it very clearly when I spoke with him on the subject, because his second son died and his seventh son was born in the same year. The disease was, for him, Chue mō pêng characterized by a dry feeling, sore throat and, to quote his exact words "pig bristles and fish scales were found growing on the body". There was no vomiting or excretion of blood and it was not cholera or malaria which were known to, and otherwise described by the villagers.
According to Peplow, the usual remedy was as described in his account:
"The patient has a high temperature and certain medicines are taken such as honeysuckle and honey. In addition a kind of paste is prepared from rice, boiled. With this the patient's chest is vigorously rubbed, and during this operation thick bristles about an inch long appear through the skin. After these have been plucked out, the fever subsides”.
In old Ngau Tau Kok village of East Kowloon, a settlement of Hakka quarry men, where I spoke with old villagers on the subject in the mid 1960s, the local treatment for this disease was quite different. It was to kill a chicken, take off its feathers, wrap them in a newly bought white cloth not previously washed, place it in hot water and then rub over the body excluding the chest. Two reasons for not rubbing the chest were given: that the heart was centred there, and that women should not be rubbed there anyway. If the complaint did turn out to be chu mỏ pêng, pig-like bristles would stick to the cloth. They believed that chu mō pêng was a kind of poison inside the body, resulting in too much heat (r'aaì ít hei) that could lead to death or to mental disorder.
At Ngau Tau Kok, several remedies were given for excess heat. The first was to buy a wông lo kat (E) for 50 cents, and boil it for two hours. The water had to be carefully measured at the start as no more should be added to it during the boiling, the intention being to reduce six bowls down to two. The remaining liquid was drunk.
Another method was to take a turnip (löh paûk)蘿蔔, and slice and dry it. It should then be soaked for two hours in water