KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 (Bernama) -- One evening during the fasting month last year, 46-year-old Noordin Sulaiman, felt some pain in the left side of his abdomen.

Thinking that it was the time to answer nature's call, Noordin went to the toilet. What came out shocked the lorry driver. It was bucketfull of blood.

Noordin was immediately rushed to a public medical centre here where doctors told him that that his blood haemoglobin count had fallen to the dangerous level of 4.0 due to the massive blood loss.

He was warded for two weeks and a series of tests was carried out including an endoscope which proved to be inconclusive. Finally a computerised tomography (CT) scan was done but that too was inconclusive.

Noordin had no history of gastric ulcers and doctors were baffled to the cause of the sudden intestinal bleeding.

The diagnosis was: "Intestinal bleeding due to unknown causes".

SUPERNATURAL

"It was santau (poison)...what else?," Noordin made his own conclusion.

Illness, claimed to be caused by supernatural elements, is difficult to prove.

"How do we prove things that we are not sure of or do not fully understand?," asked Che Ku Halim Che Ku Hussin.

Che Ku Halim, who is a homoeopathy medicine practitioner, said if santau really exists the problem is very difficult to deal with.

"If santau does exist, the ill that it caused will manifest as a medical problem. Most of the santau cases cause bleeding in the intestine and the sufferers either vomit or pass out blood.

"The only way is to treat its signs and symptoms. The same way modern medicine treats the case. Hence the treatment focuses on stopping the bleeding and transfusing blood," he said.

MODERN MEDICINE

Dr Francis Yoong said in cases like Noordin's, a close scrutiny of the patient's medical history will reveal the cause.

"A check on the patient's medical history would most probably reveal that the person has been eating meals at irregular times over the past few years and always drinks carbonated water.

"He may also be a chain smoker and lacks sleep apart from preferring food that contain chillies and other gastric irritants. Eventually his intestine cannot take it any longer, that is why he experienced sudden bleeding," said the doctor.

But believers of the supernatural prefer to consult the shaman or bomoh, said Che Ku Hashim.

STRANGE INCIDENTS

"Sometimes the newspaper reported about strange incidents like pieces of glasses or small stones coming out through an individual's skin.

"To either the medical or homoeopathy practitioner, the problem is due to something wrong in the individual's excretion system," said Che Ku Hashim.

Dr Yoong said in renal failure cases, the patients would find small whitish granules coming out through their skin, causing great itchiness.

"It is salt alright, in the form of calcium granules as in kidney failure patients, the calcium is continuously eroded from the bones by the presence of high phosphate level in the blood stream.

"The phosphates is usually excreted via the kidneys," he said.

WHY BELIEVE IN SOMETHING DIFFICULT TO PROVE?

But why do people still like to believe in something that is difficult to prove?

Psychologist Maimunah Karim said exploring the realms of the dark and mysterious has always fascinated the human mind.

"We are used to witnessing daily happenings, it has become routine for us. But incidents that are considered strange tend to attract our attention.

Maimunah said the belief in the supernatural is not confined to the layman, those who are educated are affected too, as in the infamous "Mona Fandey" murder case.

That is also why lately, horror flicks like Dukun, Puaka Tebing Biru, Cermin and Jangan Pandang Belakang have been drawing the crowd at cineplexes nationwide, she said.

CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH THE SHAMAN

Maimunah also said the Malays are equally fascinated by the world of the shaman and the supernatural.

"The shamans are thought to be able to communicate with beings from the other world and can seek their assistance in difficult tasks like searching for missing objects or exorcism.

"That is why when there are exhibitions on ghosts and unearthly beings, the public would throng to such events hoping to see something out of this world, like hantu raya and other supernatural entities".

Recently the National Fatwa Council ruled that such exhibitions will lead to a deviation in the faith of Muslims and hence they should be banned.

"The problem is that during the pre-Merdeka years, the locals were deeply entrenched in shamanism, but the practice gradually dissipated as we embrace the world of science and technology," she added.

The article above was found on Google and was published originally on Malaysian National News Agency