Rain, However, Is Not Considered Unhealthy Here; And
The People, Unlike The Meccans And The Cairenes, Expect It With
Pleasure, Because It Improves Their Date-Trees And Fruit
Plantations.[FN#10] In Winter It Usually Rains At Night, In Spring
During The Morning, And In Summer About Evening Time.
This is the case
throughout Al-Hijaz, as explained by the poet Labid in these lines,
which describe the desolate site of an old encampment:-
"It (the place) hath been fertilised by the first spring showers of the
constellations, and hath been swept by
The incessant torrents of the thunder-clouds, falling in heavy and
in gentle rains,
>From each night-cloud, and heavily dropping morning-cloud,
And the even-cloud, whose crashings are re-echoed from around."
"It (the place) hath been fertilised by the first spring showers of the
constellations, and hath been swept by
The incessant torrents of the thunder-clouds, falling in heavy and in
gentle rains,
>From each night-cloud, and heavily dropping morning-cloud,
And the even-cloud, whose crashings are re-echoed from around."
And the European reader will observe that the Arabs generally reckon
three seasons, including our autumn, in their summer. The hot weather
at Al-Madinah appeared to me as extreme as the hibernal cold is
described to be, but the air was dry, and the open plain prevented the
faint and stagnant sultriness which distinguishes Meccah. Moreover,
though the afternoons were close, the nights and the mornings were cool
and dewy. At this season the citizens sleep on the house-tops, or on
the ground
[p.384]outside their doors. Strangers must follow this example with
considerable circumspection; the open air is safe in the Desert, but in
cities it causes, to the unaccustomed, violent catarrhs and febrile
affections.
I collect the following notes upon the diseases and medical treatment
of the Northern Hijaz. Al-Madinah has been visited four times by the
Rih al-Asfar[FN#11] (yellow wind), or Asiatic Cholera, which is said to
have committed great ravages, sometimes carrying off whole households.
In the Rahmat al-Kabirah, the "Great Mercy," as the worst attack is
piously called, whenever a man vomited, he was abandoned to his fate;
before that, he was treated with mint, lime-juice, and copious draughts
of coffee. It is still the boast of Al-Madinah, that the Taun, or
plague, has never passed her frontier.[FN#12] The Judari, or smallpox,
appears to be indigenous to the countries bordering upon the Red Sea;
we read of it there in the earliest works of the Arabs,[FN#13] and even
to the present time it sometimes sweeps through Arabia and the Somali
[p.385] country with desolating violence. 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.
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