DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0167
A PRESCRIPTION AT RANDOM. 151
refused to let me go that afternoon ; he said that it
was a bad road, and that a Jew had been robbed
a few days before on his way to Bethlehem ; and
again lying down, he silenced all objections with
the eternal but hateful word, "Bokhara, bokhara,"
to-morrow, to-morrow. Seeing there was no help
for me, I made the best of it, and asked him to
furnish me with a place to lodge in that night.
He immediately gave orders to the janizary ; and*
as I was rising to leave, asked me if I could not
give him some medicine. I had some expectation
and some fear of this, and would have avoided it
if I could. I had often drugged and physicked a
common Arab, but had never been called upon to
prescribe for such pure porcelain of the earth as a
governor. Nevertheless, I ventured my unskilful
hand upon him ; and having with all due gravity
asked his symptoms, and felt his pulse, and made
him stick out his tongue till he could hardly get it
back again, I looked down his throat, and into his
eyes, and covering him up, told him, with as much
solemnity as if I was licensed to kill secundem
artem, that I would send him some medicine, with
the necessary directions for taking it. I was quite
equal to the governor's case, for I saw that he had
merely half killed himself with eating, and wanted
clearing out, and I had with me emetics and ca-
thartics that I well knew were capable of clearing
out a whole regiment. In the course of the even-
ing he sent his janizary to me; and expecting to
be off before daylight, I gave him a double emetic,
refused to let me go that afternoon ; he said that it
was a bad road, and that a Jew had been robbed
a few days before on his way to Bethlehem ; and
again lying down, he silenced all objections with
the eternal but hateful word, "Bokhara, bokhara,"
to-morrow, to-morrow. Seeing there was no help
for me, I made the best of it, and asked him to
furnish me with a place to lodge in that night.
He immediately gave orders to the janizary ; and*
as I was rising to leave, asked me if I could not
give him some medicine. I had some expectation
and some fear of this, and would have avoided it
if I could. I had often drugged and physicked a
common Arab, but had never been called upon to
prescribe for such pure porcelain of the earth as a
governor. Nevertheless, I ventured my unskilful
hand upon him ; and having with all due gravity
asked his symptoms, and felt his pulse, and made
him stick out his tongue till he could hardly get it
back again, I looked down his throat, and into his
eyes, and covering him up, told him, with as much
solemnity as if I was licensed to kill secundem
artem, that I would send him some medicine, with
the necessary directions for taking it. I was quite
equal to the governor's case, for I saw that he had
merely half killed himself with eating, and wanted
clearing out, and I had with me emetics and ca-
thartics that I well knew were capable of clearing
out a whole regiment. In the course of the even-
ing he sent his janizary to me; and expecting to
be off before daylight, I gave him a double emetic,