In India, Persia, And
Afghanistan, It Is Called Chob-Chini,-The "Chinese Wood." The
Preparations Are In Two Forms, 1.
Sufuf, or powder; 2.
Kahwah, or
decoction. The former is compound of Radix China Qrient, with gum
mastich and sugar-candy, equal parts; about a dram of this compound is
taken once a day, early in the morning. For the decoction one ounce of
fine parings is boiled for a quarter of an hour in a quart of water.
When the liquid assumes a red colour it is taken off the fire and left
to cool. Furthermore, there are two methods of adhibiting the
choh-chini: 1. Band; 2. Khola. The first is when the patient confines
himself to a garden, listening to music, enjoying the breeze, the song
of birds, and the bubbling of a flowing stream. He avoids everything
likely to trouble and annoy him; he will not even open a letter, and
the doctor forbids anyone to contradict him. Some grandees in central
Asia will go through a course of forty days in every second year; it
reminds one of Epicurus' style of treatment,-the downy bed, the
garlands of flowers, the good wine, and the beautiful singing girl, and
is doubtless at least as efficacious in curing as the sweet relaxation
of Gräfenberg or Malvern. So says Socrates, according to the Anatomist
of Melancholy,
"Oculum non curabis sine toto capite,
Nec caput sine toto corpore,
Nec totum corpus sine animo."
The "Khola" signifies that you take the tonic without other precautions
than the avoiding acids, salt, and pepper, and choosing summer time, as
cold is supposed to induce rheumatism.
[FN#16] Certain Lamas who, we learn from M. Huc, perform famous Sie-fa,
or supernaturalisms, such as cutting open the abdomen, licking red-hot
irons, making incisions in various parts of the body, which an instant
afterwards leave no trace behind, &c., &c. The devil may "have a great
deal to do with the matter" in Tartary, for all I know; but I can
assure M. Huc, that the Rufa'i Darwayshes in India and the Sa'adiyah at
Cairo perform exactly the same feats. Their jugglery, seen through the
smoke of incense, and amidst the enthusiasm of a crowd, is tolerably
dexterous, and no more.
[FN#17] A holy man. The word has a singular signification in a plural
form, "honoris causa."
[FN#18] A title literally meaning the "Master of Breath," one who can
cure ailments, physical as well as spiritual, by breathing upon them-a
practice well known to mesmerists. The reader will allow me to observe,
(in self-defence, otherwise he might look suspiciously upon so
credulous a narrator), that when speaking of animal magnetism, as a
thing established, I allude to the lower phenomena, rejecting the
discussion of all disputed points, as the existence of a magnetic Aura,
and of all its unintelligibilities-Prevision, Levitation, Introvision,
and other divisions of Clairvoyance.
[FN#19] In the generality, not in all. Nothing, for instance, can be
more disgraceful to human nature than the state of praedial slavery, or
serfs attached to the glebe, when Malabar was under the dominion of the
"mild Hindu." And as a rule in the East it is only the domestic slaves
who taste the sweets of slavery.
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