European and Asiatic Turkey. 125 



erysipelatous portion of tlie skin : others prefer puncturing the 

 erysipelas in many points, with sharp spiculae of wood, and im- 

 mediately applying to each puncture the point of a burning 

 stick. Dr Oppenheim asserts, that he has seen both these me- 

 thods successfully employed, for the purpose of fixing the 

 erysipelas, by which, of course, he means that the disease was 

 prevented from spreading. 



Dogs do not become mad in Turkey. — Dr Oppenheim corro- 

 borates the testimony of those who assert, that dogs never be- 

 came mad in Constantinople or Egypt, although the prejudices 

 of the people allow the canine species to multiply in a manner 

 quite anti-Malthusian. He remarks, that the dogs and birds 

 of prey, the scavengers of the East, are justly entitled to the 

 regard of the philosophers, for without their aid the ** land of 

 the sun" would soon become uninhabitable, so averse are the 

 Turks to the removal of nuisances. 



Standard of Morality among the Turks. — Dr Oppenheim 

 quaintly observes, that every city in Greece claimed to be the birth- 

 place of Homer, but every country in ihe civilized world refers the 

 origin of syphilis to its neighbour. So is it with the Turks, they 

 say it is a disease altogether of Frankish origin. It is extreme- 

 ly diffused, particularly in the towns, where it affords a rich 

 harvest to the quacks, who profess to cure the disease by warm 

 baths and purgatives, continued for twenty or thirty days in 

 succession. The regular physicians do a vast deal of injury, 

 by an injudicious use of mercury, which they exhibit both in- 

 ternally and externally, in the form of calomel, corrosive sub- 

 limate, red precipitate. Sec, in frightfully large doses. The 

 chancres are in general touched with lapis infernalis, or with 

 arsenic. The frequent employment of the bath and circumci- 

 sion, to a certain degree, prevent the effects of impure coition, a 

 source to which the Turks are extremely unwilling in any case 

 to attribute the disease. Thus, a gonorrhoea is always account- 

 ed for by their catching cold, as indeed the name of the disease 

 belzcmk, implies (a cold in the back, from bel, back, and zovk^ 

 cold). Their treatment of gonorrhoea is worthy of notice, but 

 not of imitation, for they give cantharides in the form of pills 

 or tincture, in such considerable doses, as often to produce vio- 

 lent irritation of the urinary organs : they are likewise in tlie 



