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.  During the hours of darkness, a lighted candle or lamp is always placed by the side of the bed, or the sufferer would die of madness, brought on by evil spirits or fright.  Sheep’s wool is burnt in the sick-room, as death would follow the inhaling of any perfume.  The only remedy I have heard of is pounded Kohl (antimony) drunk in water, and the same is drawn along the breadth of the eyelid, to prevent blindness.  The diet is Adas (lentils),[FN#16] and a peculiar kind of date, called Tamr al-Birni.  On the twenty-first day the patient is washed with salt and tepid water.

Ophthalmia is rare.[FN#17] In the summer, quotidian and

[p.386]tertian fevers (Hummah Salis) are not uncommon, and if accompanied by emetism, they are frequently fatal.

[p.387]The attack generally begins with the Naffazah, or cold fit, and is followed by Al-Hummah, the hot stage.  The principal remedies are cooling drinks, such as Sikanjabin (oxymel) and syrups.  After the fever the face and body frequently swell, and indurated lumps appear on the legs and stomach.  There are also low fevers, called simply Hummah; they are usually treated by burning charms in the patient’s room.  Jaundice and bilious complaints are common, and the former is popularly cured in a peculiar way.  The sick man looks into a pot full of water, whilst the exorciser, reciting a certain spell, draws the heads of two needles from the patient’s ears along his eyes, down his face, lastly dipping them into water, which at once becomes yellow.  Others have “Mirayat,” magic mirrors,[FN#18] on which the patient looks, and looses the complaint.

[p.388] Dysenteries frequently occur in the fruit season, when the greedy Arabs devour all manner of unripe