Mussuck

In that form of sunstroke where the person is struck down suddenly by a hot sun, the patient should be removed into the shade, and the douche of cold water being allowed to fall in a stream on the head and body, from a pump (or, as in India, from the mussuck, or other similar contrivance should be freely resorted to, the object being two-fold: to reduce the temperature of the over-heated centres, and to rouse them into action. During the assault on the White House piquet in the last Burmese war, numbers of men were struck down by the direct action of the sun during the month of April. They were laid out perfectly unconscious, in their red coats and stocks (they wore them in those days, 1852), but were recovered by the cold douche freely applied by the mussuck over the head and body.

We had what was to us an extraordinary and fascinating experience in this trip of going down the Ravi River through strong rapids on mussucks, or inflated cowskins, and it was indeed a delightful river voyage of fifty miles through splendid hill scenery.