The
Report Of This Extraordinary Phenomenon Soon Spread Abroad, And A Vast
Concourse Of People Assembled; But My Guard Would Not Allow Any One To
Enter Without My Permission.
In the evening I sent for a band of
music, and my company continued dancing and rioting till morning.
They
brought in several Jewish women, and carried the farce to such a
length, that I was completely rejoiced to get rid of them,
determining, in my own mind, never again to venture such another
entertainment.
LETTER XXI.
_Prevalent Diseases - Abuse of Stimulants - Medicinal
Well - Sorcery - Hydrophobia._
Mequinez.
Although the plague is not so common in these states as in Turkey and
Egypt, yet it is often brought hither by means of the caravans, and
several articles of luxury imported annually by the merchants from
Mecca and Medina; and, for want of proper precaution, it is suffered
to spread, to desolate, and to stop of its own accord; for the Moors
continue obstinately blinded by the same superstitious and absurd
notions that are entertained by the Mahometans of the Turkish empire,
of its being a punishment occasionally inflicted upon the true
believers by their angry Prophet, and that it is incurable; and here I
receive on this subject the same tales and romantic accounts that I
did during my residence in Egypt in the year 1801.
The most prevailing diseases in this country that have come under my
observation, are, cutaneous disorders of all kinds, intermittent
fevers, those of a putrid, malignant, pestilential kind, and the
puerperal fever, which proceeds from the barbarous treatment of
lying-in women in this country, as they are kept in small confined
rooms, deprived of the benefit of pure air.
One day I went to see a very fine young woman, the lady of one of the
Xeriffes. The heat of the room was intolerable. After much persuasion,
I succeeded in having her removed to a cooler one, and she recovered,
contrary to the predictions of the female attendant, who reported the
daily changes to a celebrated doctor here. It is wonderful what
numbers of young women fall victims to this fever in the course of a
year.
Besides the above-mentioned complaints, I have observed insanity,
epilepsy, spasmodic affections of the face, ruptures of all kinds
(which last are produced by their loose kind of trowsers); nervous
consumptions, extreme debility, and dropsy, brought on by their
indolent manner of living, and the great abuses of violent doses of
drastic medicines.
The principal and opulent inhabitants of this country, in order to
excite certain desires, are frequently in the habit of receiving, from
their own doctors, several strong and powerful stimulants, to the
infallible detriment and ultimate, destruction of their
constitutions. I have been at great pains to deter them from these
abominable habits, by representing to them their ill effects and fatal
consequences; but as they all appear to have a great propensity for a
short life and a merry one, I fear my advice has been thrown away, for
I have daily the most pressing and importunate solicitations from all
classes of people, both young and old, to give them the medicines I
have alluded to: - but 1 must here be clearly understood, that
debauchery which exists in all the principal towns of this country in
a superlative degree, does not extend to the inland and mountainous
parts, where the morals are pure, and the people remarkably healthy,
strong, and robust, living to a very advanced age, and scarcely ever
afflicted with any disease excepting cutaneous disorders, to which
they are very subject. The great abuse of blood-letting on all
trifling occasions, practised by the rich inhabitants, produces very
bad effects.
There is a well in the neighbourhood of this town, which possesses a
great many medicinal virtues; and though I have not been able to
ascertain its mineral qualities, I have found, by using the water,
that it is extremely friendly to the stomach, that it excites appetite
and digestion, and lively spirits; that it is efficacious in the cure
of gravel and nephritic complaints; and in cases of foulness of the
blood, I have found it superior to any mineral waters I have met with
in Europe. It has completely cured my Jew servant of a most
inveterate scurvy, under which he had laboured for a very considerable
time.
Notwithstanding the Moors possess this inestimable treasure near one
of their most opulent and populous cities, yet, owing to fabulous
tales, handed down by tradition from one generation to another, these
superstitious people will never drink or disturb the water; to do so
is reckoned sacrilege, and the offender is severely punished: for they
positively affirm, that one of their great saints has been transmuted
into it, and that at some distant period he will resume his natural
form, to perform a great many miracles, and to render the Moors rich
and happy, more so indeed than Mahomet has promised them in the other
world.
While I have been here, I have had daily intercourse with the most
eminent of their Tweebs. They pay me regular morning visits,
questioning me on several points. One day I was asked by what means
health was preserved, and what produced disease in the human body; I
answered, that, "among several other remote causes, the air, by its
different constitutions, had a great effect upon the human frame: that
diseases revolve periodically, and keep time and measure exactly with
the seasons of the year; and that either health or disease depended in
some measure on the universal influence of the air, by its gravity,
heat, cold, moisture, dryness, or exhalations." They have no idea of
natural philosophy, nor of the knowledge and physiology of the air, or
how to change and destroy its bad qualities in close and confined
places. After much persuasion, I prevailed on some of them to make use
of the fuming mixture of brimstone and aromatic ingredients, in all
cases of pestilential fevers.
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