DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11638#0234
112
TRAV£LS IN UPPER
very skilfully. They did not use mercury in their
mode of treatment, but simply employed sudori-
lics; and so far from putting their patients under
a regimen, they, on the contrary, advised them to
indulge in a variety of foods. The Arabians have
a way of curing those disorders peculiar to them-
selves. They dig a hole in the sand, and bury
themselves in it up to the neck ; they remain in
this position without eating, exposed to the most
intense heat during the whole day. In the even-
ing only they take a little nourishment. I have
been assured that they resumed these scorching
situations for twenty or thirty days together.
But a very singular fact, and which, however,
I by no means guarantee, although it has been
sworn to by many people, and among others by
the friars of Neguade, is the wonderful property
which they ascribe to the smoke of mastich *,
namely, that of killing every sick person who
breathes it. It is possible, nay probable, that
this is only a prejudice, but it is so deeply rooted,
and so generally received, that nobody doubts the
deadly quality of burnt mastich. As I said before,
they perfume with it the porous vessels of
unbaked earth, into which they pour the
* A resinous substance, which, in the islands of the Archi-
pelago, and particularly at Scio, oozes from the Ientisk. Pit--
tmria lentU.us. Lin.
waters
TRAV£LS IN UPPER
very skilfully. They did not use mercury in their
mode of treatment, but simply employed sudori-
lics; and so far from putting their patients under
a regimen, they, on the contrary, advised them to
indulge in a variety of foods. The Arabians have
a way of curing those disorders peculiar to them-
selves. They dig a hole in the sand, and bury
themselves in it up to the neck ; they remain in
this position without eating, exposed to the most
intense heat during the whole day. In the even-
ing only they take a little nourishment. I have
been assured that they resumed these scorching
situations for twenty or thirty days together.
But a very singular fact, and which, however,
I by no means guarantee, although it has been
sworn to by many people, and among others by
the friars of Neguade, is the wonderful property
which they ascribe to the smoke of mastich *,
namely, that of killing every sick person who
breathes it. It is possible, nay probable, that
this is only a prejudice, but it is so deeply rooted,
and so generally received, that nobody doubts the
deadly quality of burnt mastich. As I said before,
they perfume with it the porous vessels of
unbaked earth, into which they pour the
* A resinous substance, which, in the islands of the Archi-
pelago, and particularly at Scio, oozes from the Ientisk. Pit--
tmria lentU.us. Lin.
waters