are subject to the small-pox. In that part of the country which is
visited by the Jelabs there is a king; the rest is occupied by small
tribes, each of which is ruled by the chief who happens to have most
influence at the time. The _Kumba_, or Pimento tree, is found there
in such plenty, that a _rotal_ or pound of salt will purchase four
or five _mid_, each _mid_ about a peck.
The trees are so large, from the quantity of water and deep clay,
that canoes are hollowed out of them sufficiently capacious to
contain ten persons.
It was related to me by Jelabs who have visited that country,
that the inhabitants of Dar Bergoo make war by sudden incursions,
traversing and laying waste a large space in a short time. They
leave their women behind, and are thus better adapted to military
operations than the Fûrians, who follow an opposite practice,
never marching without a host of attendant females. The people of
Bergoo seldom make _Selatéa_.
Some of the idolatrous nations, dependent on Bergoo, are represented
as making war in a very formidable manner. The combatants never
retreat; and the women behind light a fire, in which they heat the
heads of the spears, and exchange them for such as are cooled in
the combat. They also use poisoned weapons.
There is a remote part of the pagan country, from which slaves
are brought, which the Arabs distinguish by the term _Gnum Gnum_,
(a sobriquet,) whose inhabitants eat the flesh of the prisoners
they take in war. I have conversed with slaves who came thence,
and they admit the fact. These people are also in the habit of
stripping off the skin of the hands and faces of their slaughtered
foes, which afterwards undergo some preparation, and are worn as
a mark of triumph. Their arms, a spear or javelin, are of iron,
wrought by themselves. After having heated them to redness, they
stick the point into the trunk of a particular tree, and there leave
the weapon till the juice has dried on. In this manner it acquires,
as is reported, a most deadly poison.
A few of the more common vocabula in the language of _Dar-Run̄ga_.
Water Tta.
As eide (a pudding) Gnung.
Come and eat Gagra.
Quickly Undelak nonnerâ.
Bring the bowl Kiddeki, Kiddeki.
A mat Kubbenâng.
Cloths Lemba.
Shoes Bŏrŏ.
Sun Agn̄ing.
It is hot Agn̄ing betrân.
Moon Medding.
A wooden mortar Bedding.
Ass Gussendĕ.
Horse Filah.
Dog Ming.
House Ttong.
Kingdom Kussé.
Wood of any kind Unjŭm.
Fire Nissiek.
Woman Mmi.
Man Kameré.
Is it I? Ammé?
Reprimanding Ggó!
Grain Assé.
Maize Dimbiti.
Millet Gurwendi.
Fowl Kidi.
Winged ant Agn̄emâ.
Spear Sûbbûk.
Knife Dangala.
Foot Itar.
Eye Khasso.
Ear Nesso.
Hand Tusso.
Light blue Endréng.
Dung Abûrr.
Urine Nissich.
Copper Simméri.
Tin Fueddah.
Beads Arrû.
Loins (of the human body) _also_ Arrû.
One Kadenda.
Two Embirr.
Three Attik.
Four Mendih.
Six Subotîkeda.
Seven Ow.
Eight Sebatéis.
Nine Atih.
Ten Bûff.
Rain Kin̄ga.
God, _also_ Kin̄ga.
By God, _an adjuration_ Kin̄ga go!
Honey Tuggi.
Fish Kogn̄ong.
Meat Missich.
Gruel Ba-birré.
Stone Dissi.
A star Beité.
The stars collectively Beité-jûk.
Slave of either sex Guiah.
Male slave Guiah méré.
Female slave Guiah Mmi.
Mountain Ddéta.
Wind Wwi.
Cinders Firgi.
CHAP. XXI.
MEDICAL REMARKS.
_Psorophthalmia — Plague — Small-pox — Guinea worm —
Scrophula — Syphilis — Bile — Tenia — Hernia — Hydrocele
— Hemorrhoides and Fistula — Apoplexy — Umbilical ruptures
— Accouchemens — Hydrophobia — Phlebotomy — Remedies —
Remarks — Circumcision — Excision._
From the following detached remarks, the result chiefly of personal
observation, if the physiologist can derive any amusement, or the
traveller the smallest mitigation of his personal sufferings, the
purpose of committing them to paper is answered.
If any medical professor should chance to advert to them, the writer
is too conscious of the superficiality of his own knowlege not to
perceive, that little satisfaction will be derived. But persuaded,
that the art of healing, even at this day, abounds little less
in experiments than in the age of one of its brightest ornaments,
who makes the confession, he is induced to believe, scarcely any
fact relative to it, or any experiment, faithfully narrated, can be
wholly destitute of its use.
_Psorophthalmia._
It is remarked that in Egypt, but particularly in Kahira, the blind,
and those who have defective vision, bear a large proportion to
the number of the inhabitants. The fact observed, which cannot be
disputed, has been explained in various ways. It has by some been
considered as proceeding from the habitual use of rice. By others,
as the effect of the subtle dust which floats in the air. Even the
water of the Nile has been supposed to co-operate at least, if not
to be the sole agent, in producing this remarkable disease.
To explore the origin of this or any other malady, all its appearances
must first be accurately noted. The ophthalmia of Egypt leads
us through a diversity of symptoms, from slight inflammation and
defluxion, to the total and irrecoverable blindness occasioned by
opacity of the Cornea. To enumerate them all correctly, and compare
them in a variety of cases, must be the task of an oculist long
resident on the spot, and accustomed to numerous patients. A transient
observer, however diligent in his inquiries, may more easily prove
the falsehood of the assigned causes, than trace the real one.
The Nile water, it may be supposed, when taken into the stomach,
can have no effect on the eyes, but by first altering the state of
the fluids, into which it, as well as other aliments, is gradually
converted. Whether from mineral or vegetable impregnations, it could
never operate solely on the eyes, without affecting any other part
of the animal economy. The effect of opium is seen on the blood
and muscular fibres; of mercury on the glands and lymphatics;
of cantharides on the nerves: and too great a portion of these,
taken into the body, may have a pernicious effect on the eyes, but
always through the medium of other parts. The whole _materia medica_,
perhaps, furnishes no drug or mineral that is known, when taken into
the stomach, to have a local and partial effect on the eyes. Such
an effect is even irreconcileable with the general and constantly
observed operation of all remedies applied to the human body.
Besides, if the injury were solely or even in part to arise from
the use of the Nile water, all those who drink it must be equally
affected, allowing for the different degree of firmness in the
stamina of each. But certain orders of men are rarely attacked by
this disease, and they too who are continually using the river water
both internally and externally.
Rice is one of the most nutritive and salubrious of the farinaceous
aliments, and certainly does not operate to render the humours
acrid, and thereby to inflame the eyes. It is used as a main article
of food by the natives of a large portion of Asia, and forms no
inconsiderable part of the consumption in other countries, without
being observed to produce any such effect as is here attributed to
it; and may therefore fairly be denied to have any such power.
Something more plausible indeed offers itself as to the injurious
operation of an external cause. Nothing can be more subtle than
the dust into which the vegetable soil of Egypt resolves itself
when it becomes dry. This, during a certain portion of the year,
is in a manner suspended in the air, from a cause which exists in
few other countries, I mean the want of rain. It also contains a
large portion of nitre, which is copiously produced in Egypt. This
circumstance, however, is common to many other places. This light
dust, doubtless of a very irritating quality, not only floats in the
streets, but pervades the apartments of every dwelling, insinuating
itself into the most artfully constructed inclosures: by it therefore
the eyes may and must be in some degree affected. But Nature has
not ordained that a part so much exposed should be destitute of its
appropriate protection. The secretions of the lachrymal glands are,
in general, abundantly sufficient to counteract the injury sustained
by the action of corrosive or irritating substances on the external
fabric of the eye, being always produced exactly in proportion to
the circumstances that demand them, as daily experience confirms:
yet it cannot be denied, that the continually repeated operation
of an offending cause, when no remedy is applied, may be more than
commensurate with the efforts of Nature to restore herself.
Such is precisely the condition of the Kahirines. The accommodating
the quality of diet to the symptoms of derangement in the economy
is a precaution unknown to them: and of their remedies, many are so
prepared, or so administered, as to augment rather than to annihilate
disease. No idea offers itself to them, but of topical applications to
remove a local complaint. If any thing be applied in these _flussioni_
(dysophthalmia) it is generally _kôhhel_ (calx of tin mixed with
sheep’s fat) or _tûtti_, a still more powerful astringent, applied
in coarse powder, and naturally tending to increase rather than to
allay the irritation.
When thus incommoded, the Egyptians of the lower class esteem
water pernicious, and therefore rarely wash their eyes; but as the
collected dust begins to cause an uneasy sensation, apply their
fingers or a coarse cotton cloth to remove it. The higher orders,
who are neat in their persons, and regular in their ablutions, are
rarely observed to be greatly harassed by this complaint. And the
progress of the disorder, when in its nascent state, has several
times been stopped, under my observation, by the use of rose-water,
solution of sacchar. saturn. &c. as in other places.
But as no single one of these causes, nor even all of them together,
appear sufficient to account for all the phenomena, another, more
powerful, is to be sought; and none suggests itself more opportunely
than that alleged by Savary, who imagines that the defect of vision
is principally brought about by the habit of being exposed to the
nocturnal air during the summer, at which season a heavy dew falls,
and a great transition happens from the heats of the day. In fact,
if the face of those who sleep exposed be not completely covered, an
itching and unpleasant sensation is always felt in the eyes at rising.
It is ordinarily experienced in the city, where, from being confined
in the day, people feel most disposed to seek for coolness and
refreshment on their terraces at night.
The Mamlûks, and higher order of Arabs, that is, Mohammedan
merchants, and the superior rank of Copts and Franks, are least
affected, as being cleanly, not exposing themselves to the night air
without necessity, and being well covered. The Arabs of the desert
are as free from blindness as any people. They never sleep with the
face exposed, and have moreover the advantage of being devoid of the
dust and other supposed causes of psorophthalmia in the city. The
disorder appears no where so much as in Kahira, because no where
are all the causes so much combined: yet it is seen in Alexandria,
Damiatt, and in Upper Egypt, which shews that the cause is not
confined to Kahira. Among the poorer class of all countries prevails
a kind of _insouciance_. That of Kahira is particularly exposed
to the changes of temperature and the nocturnal dew, and is ill
clothed. Hence the disorder is mostly found among the populace. A
disposition to inflammation often appears in the eyes of children,
but yields to proper remedies. Hence it may be imagined, that with
attention the Egyptians would not suffer more than other nations.
Some travellers have thought that the ophthalmic disease in Kahira was
occasioned by the fetid exhalations of the Chalige, and the drains;
and have even observed, that those who are most severely affected in
winter, recover as soon as the water has filled the Chalige and the
pools. This is also a common idea with the natives. “The stink
blinds me,” is a frequent expression on coming into a place of
fetid odour; and it may be remarked, that the ordinary maxims of
_indigenæ_ are rarely to be entirely disregarded. Whatever miasms
however may issue from the canal, they cannot be equally dispersed
over the city, as blindness is; and the Franks, Greeks, and other
strangers who reside nearest this depôt of impurity, would be most
affected if that were the cause. It may yet be one cause. Another I
take to be the subtile dust above mentioned; but the most powerful,
indiscreet exposure to the nocturnal air and dews. The collective
influence of these is strengthened by the cloudless splendour of
a vertical sun, reflected from the sterile expanse of sand, which
offers no sombrous object on which the eye may repose itself.
These considerations, it may be acknowleged, do not carry conviction;
but too many local diseases are yet unexplained, to leave any wonder
if the cause of this should yet remain problematical.
_Plague._
All the improvements in the art of healing which modern Europe can
boast as its own, are the result of more frequent experiment, and
more patient and minute investigation, than existed in the antient.
To conjecture ingeniously is a matter of small effort, and in treating
of what is properly the object of experiment, it is not only of
no value, but often of dangerous result. But it is suited to the
indolence of the human mind, and flattering to personal vanity, which
delights to perform much by a single energy. Hence, an hypothesis
supported by some insulated fact, perhaps only by specious error,
is often advanced with warmth, and the most important considerations
militating against it, are forgotten, or warped to serve the purpose
of the inventor. Thus the increase of the Nile was once confidently
attributed to the Etesian winds; and the malady which has so often
almost depopulated Kahira, is still by some imagined to proceed from
the putrid deposition of its waters.
We have at length disposed ourselves to the habit of tracing
the cause of disease, by combining a number of minute, and often
varying, symptoms. A practice which, if correct in its detail, can
never but be accurate in its deductions. Relative to the Plague,
however, whose very name distracts the timid, and appals even the
courageous, our reasonings and our deductions are quite of a different
description. Respecting its cause, all is conjecture. No experienced
or well-informed practitioner has watched the bed of the sick; none
has accurately examined the different appearances which the disease
assumes in different persons, nor even in its different stages, in the
same person. Scarcely any, it is believed, has been tranquil enough
to hear patiently from the mouth of the sufferer an account of his
sensations, which, recounted by a third person, never fail to vary.
Where this malady appears, the physician and the priest, the pride
of science and the security of faith, confident and boastful when
the patient alone is threatened, are both equally alert in their
efforts to escape. The ignorant and unreflecting Muslim, indeed,
awe-struck, and resigned to the unalterable decree of Fate, hangs
over the couch of his expiring relative. But the report, guided
by prejudice, is likely to mislead, and the observation can be of
little value when the sole sentiment is stupor.
Thus the Plague remains almost destitute of a local habitation,
though it have a name in nosology.
Who can at this day determine, whether the pestilence mentioned
by Thucydides be the same as that of Modern Egypt and Turkey? Or
whether the epidemical diseases, which have for several centuries,
at intervals ravaged different parts of the Turkish empire, have been
all specifically the same? The Europeans frequenting the Levant, have
written profound treatises on the plague, simply from having seen
a quantity of dead bodies carried past the doors of their houses,
which the double optics of fear have occasionally magnified from
500 to 10,000.
The facts that appear chiefly to be ascertained relative to the
plague, are, 1st, That the infection is not received but by actual
contact. In this particular, it would seem less formidable than
several other disorders. 2. That it is communicated by certain
substances, by others not, as by a woollen cloth, or rope of hemp,
but not by a piece of ivory, wood, or a rope made of the date tree;
nor by any thing that has been completely immersed in water. It would
appear from the report of the Kahirines, that no animal but man is
affected with this disorder; though, it is said, a cat passing from
an infected house, has carried the contagion. 3. That persons have
often remained together in the same house, and entirely under the
same circumstances, of whom one has been attacked, and died; and
the others never felt the smallest inconvenience. 4. That a person
may be affected any number of times. 5. That it is more fatal to
the young than the old. 6. That no climate appears to be exempt
from it; yet, 7. that the extremes of heat and cold both appear
to be adverse to it. In Constantinople it is often, but far from
being always terminated by the cold of winter, and in Kahira by the
heat of summer; both circumstances being, as may be conjectured,
the effect of indisposition for absorption in the skin, unless it
be supposed that in the latter case, it may be attributed to the
change the air undergoes from the increase of the Nile.
The first symptoms are said to be thirst; 2. cephalalgia; 3. a
stiff and uneasy sensation, with redness and tumour about the eyes;
4. watering of the eyes; 5. white pustules on the tongue. The more
advanced symptoms of buboes, fœtor of the breath, &c. &c. are well
known; and I have nothing authentic to add to them. Not uncommonly,
all these have successively shewn themselves, yet the patient has
recovered; in which case, where suppuration has had place, the skin
always remains discoloured, commonly of a purple hue.—Many who
have been bleeded in an early stage of the disorder, have recovered
without any fatal symptoms; but whether from that or any other cause,
does not appear certain. The same operation is reported to have been
commonly fatal in a late stage. It is said that embrocating the buboes
continually with oil has sometimes wrought a cure; but this remedy
is so difficult and dangerous for the operator, that it would appear
experiments must yet be very defective. The natives of Kahira are too
supine to seek for any remedy, and too bigoted to avoid the danger.
The plague which happened in Egypt so early as the year 1348, when
Constantinople was yet subject to the Greek emperor, and Egypt in
possession of Mohammedans, may be supposed to have originated in
the latter. But not to mention that there were many other places
from which it might be brought, this single instance, not given in
detail, is insufficient to overthrow the testimony of the modern
inhabitants, who with one consent affirm, whether Mohammedans or
Christians, that the plague is not endemial in Egypt, but that all
the instances of it which they are able to trace are proved to have
been derived from abroad.
The learned Dr. Mead has brought the plague from Ethiopia, where
famine and the small-pox indeed carry off numbers; but where the
plague was never known to exist. It is not remembered to have
penetrated far into the Upper Egypt, except in some few instances,
when it was known to have been carried thither by the boats from
Kahira. No more is required to account for its introduction into
Egypt at this day, than the admission, that it is never completely
extinct at Constantinople, which, it seems, has scarcely been denied.
The imagination of one of our poets has drawn the pestilence from
the filth of Kahira, and the mud of the Nile. But, not to mention
that there is less disposition to fermentation and putrefaction
in the atmosphere of Egypt, than in almost any other that I have
heard described, Kahira is very far from being impure. No offensive
substance remains in the streets twenty-four hours; and even what
is left to annoy passengers in London and Paris for months, is there
carried away and preserved for burning.
The mud of the Nile becomes dry in a very short space of time
after the water has left it, except in the canal (Chalige) which is
indeed not very odoriferous; but so far from emitting pestilential
exhalations, that the Franks who especially dwell close to it, are
never infected with the plague, and are in general among the most
healthy of the inhabitants of that metropolis.
_Small-pox._
The small-pox is a disease much dreaded by the people of Soudân,
whether Moors or Negroes, and little less by the Bedouins of
Egypt. The Christians of Kahira are many of them in the habit of
inoculating. A few of the Mohammedans use the same practice. It
is however almost impossible to persuade them to adopt our mode
of treatment.
Independently of the general ill consequence of improper management
of the patient, the chief reason of the extraordinary fatality of this
complaint among the negroes, appears to be the thickness of the skin,
which resisting the effort of nature to protrude the morbid matter to
the surface, tends to throw it back into the circulation. A proprietor
of slaves, who was rather anxious for the conservation of his
property, than scrupulous in his attachment to religious prejudice,
desired me to inoculate five of them. A strong dose of senna was
administered as preparative, and they were afterwards restrained as
to diet. Three of them had not in the whole forty pustules, and soon
recovered. The other two suffered much; and the eruption, though
not confluent, proved fatal to one of them. Whether he had caught
it before, been improperly treated, or whether it was the effect
of habit of body, was not clear. These were of the true negro cast,
called, _Fertît_. They were all under twelve years of age.
_Guinea Worm._
The Mohammedans of Fûr, and the Arabs, call the idolaters in their
neighbourhood _Fertît_, (فرتيت à فرت _improbus fuit_). The
disease called the Guinea Worm is known among them by the same
name. It is extremely common, and very troublesome to the slaves,
and sometimes to free persons. It is by some esteemed contagious,
which however is rather surmised than certified. It consists of
a whitish tumour, at first hard and painful. Often shews itself
about the knee, in the fleshy part of the thigh, and in the foot,
just below the instep. As it is matured, a small white worm appears,
which is to be wound off by degrees, and in coming out is followed
by the discharge of purulent matter. If broken in the extraction,
it is sometimes very inconvenient, and often lasts four or even
six months. There is no certain cure for this disease, which most
frequently shews itself in the beginning of winter, after the rains;
but generally disappears at the commencement of the hot season. It
seems to originate in the water, which is replete with animalcules,
and which no care is used to purify.
They find by the termination of the tumour the extremity of the worm,
which they call _wullad-el-Fertît_, and in that spot, puncture the
skin with a red-hot iron, which they conceive forces it out; but
which always appeared to me a painful operation, without any kind of
effect. There is observed in some individuals a greater disposition
to this disease than in others, but it is not confined to age, sex,
or colour.
_Scrophula._
The scurvy is very uncommon in Egypt and Syria. In the former I saw
no instance of it. In Dar-Fûr I have observed it in the gums, but
never any general dissemination of scrophulous humour appearing in
the blood. As the transpiration is seldom interrupted, and generally
copious, it must doubtless carry off much of the acrid humours, and
prevent their accretion. Salt provisions, which generate the scurvy
in the North of Europe, are almost unknown; and much of the diet of
the people consists of vegetables. All these circumstances have their
influence, but none of them perhaps so much as the Nile-water, which
is a perfect solvent; and by the change of its component parts during
the increase, has a particular tendency to throw off impurities from
the blood.
_Syphilis._