donkeys would not graze, hut stood day and night
in the dense smoke of fires, made of sticks and
green grass, for protection.
The plague of boils broke out, and every one
was attacked more or less severely. Then came a
plague of which Moses must have been ignorant,
or he would surely have inflicted it upon Pharaoh.
This was a species of itch, which affected all ages
and both sexes equally; it attacked all parts of
the body, but principally the extremities. The irritation
was beyond description; small vesicles rose
above the skin, containing a watery fluid, which,
upon bursting, appeared to spread the disease, The
Arabs' had no control over this malady, which they
called “ coorash,” and the whole country was scratching.
The popular belief attributed the disease to
the water of the Atbara at this particular season ;
although a horrible plague, I do not believe it to
have any connexion with the well-known itch or
‘/scabies” of Europe.
I adopted a remedy that I had found a specific for
mange in dogs, and this treatment became equally
successful in cases of coorash. Gunpowder, with
the addition of one fourth of sulphur, made into
a soft paste with water, and then formed into an
pintment with fa t: this should be rubbed over the-
whole body. The effect upon a black man is that
of a well-cleaned boot—upon a white man it is
still more striking; but it quickly cures the malady,
I went.into half mourning by this process, and I
should have adopted deep mourning had it been
necessary; I was only attacked from the feet to a
little above the knees. Florian was in a dreadful
state, and. the vigorous and peculiar action of his
arms at once explained the origin of the term,
“ Scotch fiddle,” the musical instrument commonly
attributed to the north of Great Britain.
The Arabs are wretchedly ignorant of the healing
art, and they suffer accordingly. At least fifty
per cent, of the population in Sofi had a permanent
enlargement of the spleen, which could be felt with
a slight pressure, of the hand, frequently as large
as an orange; this was called “ Jenna el Wirde”
(child of the fever), and was the result of constant
attacks of fever in successive rainy seasons.
Faith is the drug that is supposed to cure the
Arab ; whatever his complaint may be, he applies
to his Eaky, or priest. This minister is not troubled
with a confusion of book-learning, neither are
the shelves of his library bending beneath weighty
treatises upon the various maladies of human nature:;
but he possesses the key to all learning, the talisman
that will apply to all cases, in that one holy
book the Koran. This is his complete pharmacopoeia :
his medicine chest, combining purgatives, blisters,
sudorifics, styptics, narcotics, emetics, and all that
the most profound M.D. could prescribe. With this
“ multum in parvo ” stock-in-trade the Faky receives
his patients. No. 1 arrives, a barren woman who requests
some medicine that will promote the blessing