In The Town Of Al-Madinah It
Is Fatal To Children, Many Of Whom, However, Are In These Days
Inoculated[FN#14]:
Amongst the Badawin, old men die of it, but adults
are rarely victims, either in the City or in the Desert.
The nurse
closes up the room whilst the sun is up, and carefully excludes the
night air, believing that, as the disease is "hot,[FN#15]" a breath of
wind will kill the patient. During the hours of darkness, a lighted
candle or lamp is always placed by the side of the bed, or the sufferer
would die of madness, brought on by evil spirits or fright. Sheep's
wool is burnt in the sick-room, as death would follow the inhaling of
any perfume. The only remedy I have heard of is pounded Kohl (antimony)
drunk in water, and the same is drawn along the breadth of the eyelid,
to prevent blindness. The diet is Adas (lentils),[FN#16] and a peculiar
kind of date, called Tamr al-Birni. On the twenty-first day the patient
is washed with salt and tepid water.
Ophthalmia is rare.[FN#17] In the summer, quotidian and
[p.386]tertian fevers (Hummah Salis) are not uncommon, and if
accompanied by emetism, they are frequently fatal.
[p.387]The attack generally begins with the Naffazah, or cold fit, and
is followed by Al-Hummah, the hot stage. The principal remedies are
cooling drinks, such as Sikanjabin (oxymel) and syrups. After the fever
the face and body frequently swell, and indurated lumps appear on the
legs and stomach. There are also low fevers, called simply Hummah; they
are usually treated by burning charms in the patient's room. Jaundice
and bilious complaints are common, and the former is popularly cured in
a peculiar way. The sick man looks into a pot full of water, whilst the
exorciser, reciting a certain spell, draws the heads of two needles
from the patient's ears along his eyes, down his face, lastly dipping
them into water, which at once becomes yellow. Others have "Mirayat,"
magic mirrors,[FN#18] on which the patient looks, and looses the
complaint.
[p.388] Dysenteries frequently occur in the fruit season, when the
greedy Arabs devour all manner of unripe
[p.389]peaches, grapes, and pomegranates. The popular treatment is by
the actual cautery; the scientific affect the use of drastics and
astringent simples, and the Bizr al-Kutn (cotton-seed), toasted,
pounded, and drunk in warm water. Almost every one here, as in Egypt,
suffers more or less from haemorrhoids; they are treated by
dietetics-eggs and leeks-and by a variety of drugs, Myrobalans,
Lisan-al-Hamal (Arnoglossum), etc. But the patient looks with horror at
the scissors and the knife, so that they seldom succeed in obtaining a
radical cure. The Filaria Medinensis, locally called "Farantit," is no
longer common at the place which gave it its European name. At Yambu',
however, the people suffer much from the Vena appearing in the legs.
The complaint is treated here as in India and in Abyssinia: when the
tumour bursts, and the worm shows, it is extracted by being gradually
wound round a splinter of wood. Hydrophobia is rare, and the people
have many superstitions about it. They suppose that a bit of meat falls
from the sky, and that a dog eating it becomes mad. I was assured by
respectable persons, that when a man is bitten, they shut him up with
food, in a solitary chamber, for four days, and that if at the end of
that time he still howls like a dog, they expel the Ghul (demon) from
him, by pouring over him boiling water mixed with ashes-a certain cure
I can easily believe. The only description of leprosy known in Al-Hijaz
is that called "Al-Baras": it appears in white patches on the skin,
seldom attacks any but the poorer classes, and is considered incurable.
Wounds are treated by Marham, or ointments, especially by the
"Balesan," or Balm of Meccah; a cloth is tied round the limb, and
[p.390]not removed till the wound heals, which amongst this people of
simple life, generally takes place by first intention. Ulcers are
common in Al-Hijaz, as indeed all over Arabia. We read of them in
ancient times. In A.D. 504, the poet and warrior, Amr al-Kays, died of
this dreadful disease, and it is related that when Mohammed Abu Si
Mohammed, in A.H. 132, conquered Al-Yaman with an army from Al-Hijaz,
he found the people suffering from sloughing and mortifying sores, so
terrible to look upon that he ordered the sufferers to be burnt alive.
Fortunately for the patients, the conqueror died suddenly before his
inhuman mandate was executed. These sores here, as in Al-Yaman,[FN#19]
are worst when upon the shin bones; they eat deep into the leg, and the
patient dies of fever and gangrene. They are treated on first
appearance by the actual cautery, and, when practicable, by cutting off
the joint; the drugs popularly applied are Tutiya (tutty) and
verdigris. There is no cure but rest, a generous diet, and change of
air.
By the above short account it will be seen that the Arabs are no longer
the most skilful physicians in the world. They have, however, one great
advantage in their practice, and they are sensible enough to make free
use of it. As the children of almost all the respectable citizens are
brought up in the Desert, the camp becomes to them a native village. In
cases of severe wounds or chronic diseases, the patient is ordered off
to the Black Tents, where he lives as a Badawi, drinking camels' milk
(a diet for the first three or four days highly cathartic), and doing
nothing. This has been the practice from time immemorial in Arabia,
whereas Europe is only beginning to systematise the adhibition of air,
exercise, and simple living. And even now we are obliged to veil it
under the garb of charlatanry-to call it a "milk-cure" in Switzerland,
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