The effect upon
a black man is that of a well-cleaned boot--upon a white man it
is still more striking; but it quickly cures the malady.
I went
into half mourning by this process, and I should have adopted
deep mourning had it been necessary; I was only attacked from the
feet to a little above the knees. Florian was in a dreadful
state, and the vigorous and peculiar action of his arms at once
explained the origin of the term "Scotch fiddle," the musical
instrument commonly attributed to the north of Great Britain.
The Arabs are wretchedly ignorant of the healing art, and they
suffer accordingly. At least fifty per cent. of the population in
Sofi had a permanent enlargement of the spleen, which could be
felt with a slight pressure of the hand, frequently as large as
an orange; this was called "Jenna el Wirde" (child of the fever),
and was the result of constant attacks of fever in successive
rainy seasons.
Faith is the drug that is supposed to cure the Arab; whatever his
complaint may be, he applies to his Faky or priest. This minister
is not troubled with a confusion of book-learning, neither are
the shelves of his library bending beneath weighty treatises upon
the various maladies of human nature; but he possesses the key to
all learning, the talisman that will apply to all cases, in that
one holy book the Koran. This is his complete pharmacopoeia: his
medicine chest, combining purgatives, blisters, sudorifics,
styptics, narcotics, emetics, and all that the most profound M.D.
could prescribe. With this "multum in parvo" stock-in-trade the
Faky receives his patients. No. 1 arrives, a barren woman who
requests some medicine that will promote the blessing of
childbirth. No. 2, a man who was strong in his youth, but from
excessive dissipation has become useless. No. 3, a man deformed
from his birth, who wishes to become straight as other men. No.
4, a blind child. No. 5, a dying old woman, carried on a litter;
and sundry other impossible cases, with others of a more simple
character.
The Faky produces his book, the holy Koran, and with a pen formed
of a reed he proceeds to write a prescription; not to be made up
by an apothecary, as such dangerous people do not exist, but the
prescription itself is to be SWALLOWED! Upon a smooth board, like
a slate, he rubs sufficient lime to produce a perfectly white
surface; upon this he writes in large characters, with thick
glutinous ink, a verse or verses from the Koran that he considers
applicable to the case; this completed, he washes off the holy
quotation, and converts it into a potation by the addition of a
little water; this is swallowed in perfect faith by the patient,
who in return pays a fee according to the demand of the Faky. Of
course it cannot be supposed that this effects a cure, or that it
is in any way superior to the prescriptions of a thorough-bred
English doctor; the only advantage possessed by the system is
complete innocence, in which it may perhaps claim superiority.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 83 of 290
Words from 43107 to 43645
of 151461
