DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11637#0039
AND LOWER EGYPT. 25
sicians will no doubt discover one. They will
likewise have an opportunity of ascertaining the
efficacy of the method employed for the cure of
the elephantiasis by the Hindoo physicians, which
is described with great care in the second volume
of the Asiatic Researches, printed at Calcutta.
Perhaps there is not a country upon earth,
where the disorder that corrupts the sources of
future generations is more widely diffused than
in Egypt. Its ravages, though checked by the
warmth of the climate, copious perspiration, and
warm baths, are not the less formidableand, as
no remedies are employed to slop their progress,
they sometimes produce the most terrible effects.
Ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eyes, is a
disease that may truly be deemed endemic here.
Egypt is the country of the one-eyed and blind.
Eyes perfectly sound, and eyelids neither bleared
nor swelled, are rarely to be seen. Misfortune
too has its bodies corporate ; and the revolt of
that of the blind at Cairo has sometimes made the
government tremble.
If we may believe Hasselquitz *, the vapours
that exhale from the stagnant waters are the chief
* Travels in the Levant, French translation, part ii. p- 117.
cause
sicians will no doubt discover one. They will
likewise have an opportunity of ascertaining the
efficacy of the method employed for the cure of
the elephantiasis by the Hindoo physicians, which
is described with great care in the second volume
of the Asiatic Researches, printed at Calcutta.
Perhaps there is not a country upon earth,
where the disorder that corrupts the sources of
future generations is more widely diffused than
in Egypt. Its ravages, though checked by the
warmth of the climate, copious perspiration, and
warm baths, are not the less formidableand, as
no remedies are employed to slop their progress,
they sometimes produce the most terrible effects.
Ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eyes, is a
disease that may truly be deemed endemic here.
Egypt is the country of the one-eyed and blind.
Eyes perfectly sound, and eyelids neither bleared
nor swelled, are rarely to be seen. Misfortune
too has its bodies corporate ; and the revolt of
that of the blind at Cairo has sometimes made the
government tremble.
If we may believe Hasselquitz *, the vapours
that exhale from the stagnant waters are the chief
* Travels in the Levant, French translation, part ii. p- 117.
cause