Prescription of an Arabian Physician.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue III, 18 July 1903, Page 148

Prescription of an Arabian Physician.

Medicine is supposed by the followers of Islam to possess some supernatural power, and this popular notion enables many Arabian physicians to acquire a great reputation for wisdom at a very small cost. A physician of this type is not well educated. He knows how to read and write his own tongue and he is acquainted with the properties of a number of plants, which he uses at haphazard in the treatment of all diseases, but beyond this he knows nothing. In his opinion the most effective prescriptions consist of verses which are selected from the Koran and written on coloured bits of paper. These bits of paper are then to be swallowed by the sick persons, who are assured that they wiV speedily become convalescent. Sometimes the prescription is placed in water until it is at the point of boiling. and then it must be drunk by the unfortunate patient. No matter how

absurd they may seem, the patients faithfully follow the prescriptions, and never hesitate to pay a high price for them. Nay, at the bidding of their physicians they even perform the most foolish antics, and if they are not dead by that time, they are next obliged to swallow doses composed of plants, roots and metals.. In ease of fever, a more extraordinary method is employed. The physician writes on an egg certain vereses from the Koran, and then bids the patient hatch the egg, informing him that if a chicken conies out he will certainly be cured. Patients suffering from other maladies usually make a mixture of mercury and ferrocyanrue of potassium, which they place over a fire so that they may inhale the vapour. Among other substances used in prescriptions are fat, codfish oil, garlic, aniseed, pepper, salt,, angelica, asafoetida, orange water and vinegar. The druggist does not prepare prescriptions, but delivers the ingredients, the quantity of each being solely designated by its monetary value, and the patient himself is expected to mix them.