History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. IV.] A PREVALENT PRACTICE. 159

while she is in a delicate state of health, but none dare break through the practice except in cases of serious illness, when the doctor may order the mother and child to be removed to some other place. When the woman is so ill as to be considered in danger, the prejudice nowadays vanishes, and the other members of the family attend upon her, believing that in such extremity there is no sim in breaking what they still imagine to be a religious injunction. Those, however, who have been polluted by the touch of the woman under confinement cannot touch others till they have washed their bodies and changed their clothes. Among the better classes of Parsis, when a European doctor is called in to see the woman or child, he is of course considered polluted when he touches either of them, and the orthodox head of the family, or other male members, refrain from shaking hands with him on leaving the house. The latter, being acquainted with their manners and customs, takes no offence when he finds everybody standing at a respectful distance and showing him the way out. Some of the Parsi doctors, however, under such circumstances, bathe and put on fresh clothes before departing from the house, which is very gratifying to the old ladies, who are loud in their praises for this attention to decorum. The younger members of the community, belonging to a more advanced school, only laugh at such prejudices as being absurd.