To Help Me In This Assumed Character, A Rich Mahometan
Merchant Of Calicut Happened To Fall Sick, Having His Belly
So
constipated that he could get no ease; and as he was a friend of my
Persian companion, and the
Disease daily increased, he at last asked me
if I had any skill in physic. To this I answered, that my father was a
physician, and that I had learnt many things from him. He then took me
along with him to see his friend the sick merchant, and being told that
he was very sick at the head and stomach, and sore constipated, and
having before learnt that he was a great eater and drinker, I felt his
pulse, and said that he was filled with choler or black bile, owing to
surfeiting, and that it was necessary he should have a glyster. Then I
made a glyster of eggs, salt, and sugar, together with butter and such
herbs as I could think of upon a sudden; and in the space of a day and a
night I gave him five such glysters, but all in vain, for his pains and
sickness increased, and I began to repent me of my enterprise. But it
was now necessary to put a good face on the matter, and to attempt some
other way, yet my last error seemed worse than ever. Endeavouring to
inspire him with confidence, I made him lie grovelling on his belly,
and, by cords tied to his feet, I raised up the hinder part of his body,
so that he rested only on his breast and hands; and in this posture I
administered to him another glyster, allowing him to remain in that
position for half an hour.
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