European and Asiatic Turkey, 267 



Britain^^Vj^Ct^. every day hundreds of specifics; while there 

 a^ purchasers in abundance for quack medicines, such as Mor-^ 

 rison's pills, which heal every disease ; while the aristocracy of 

 the country besiege the door of St John I^ong ; when a noble- 

 man and a member of parliament, still considered sane by his 

 constituents, has sworn in a court of justice, that St John 

 Long's frictions caused globules of quicksilver to exude from his 

 skull ; when a barrister of reputation in Dublin believes and as- 

 serts that the same hniment drew a pint of water from his own 

 brain ; when half the community of Dublin believed the miracles 

 of Hohenlohe ; when a commission, appointed by a grave and 

 learned society of physicians in Paris, has reported favourably 

 of the miraculous effects of animal magnetism ; when we recollect 

 all this, I say, ought we to indulge too freely in ridiculing the 

 Mahammedans for their trust in amulets, or the Turkish ma- 

 trons for their dread of the evil eye of the stranger, and their 

 belief that all the maladies of their offspring spring from its 

 blasting influence ? Another superstition of the Turks is, an 

 observance of lucky and unlucky days for prescribing or taking 

 medicine, and it is singular enough, that they consider Friday, 

 the most unlucky day of the week with ignorant Christians, as 

 the most propitious, while Tuesday is regarded as peculiarly 

 unlucky, and no one thinks either of the exhibition of drugs or 

 the performance of operations, even in the most urgent cases,, 

 upon a Tuesday. It was on a Friday that the memorable flight 

 of Mahammed took place, by which his life was saved. Every^, 

 one in gociety who can afford to pay for such useful information^ 

 takes care to purchase from the astrologers an intei-pretation of 

 his destinies, as fixed by the stars that presided over his nativi*^ 

 ty, and each person has his own lucky and unlucky day of the 

 week. It is well known, that even the mighty genius of Napo- 

 leon|Was enslaved by somewhat a similar superstition. The to- 

 tal ignorance and incompetence of the native practitioners have 

 not altogether escaped the observation of their countrymen, for 

 it has been long ago remarked, that a foreign physician, parti- 

 cularly if a Frank, is supposed by tlie Turks in general, to be, 

 {>ossessed of far superior knowledge, and accordingly they ai'e, 

 foflowed with avidity. Whoever appears in any part of Turkey 

 dressed like a Frenchman^ an Englishman, or a German, in fact, 



VOL. XV. NO. XXX. OCT. 1833. K 



