European and Asiatic Turkey. 123 



which often ends in their putting away their wives, an irrepar- 

 able calamity, for a woman divorced for such a cause, is looked 

 upon as unsound and degenerate, and can never expect to get 

 another husband. Hence, the harems are head quarters for all 

 manner of contrivances and means supposed capable of promot- 

 ing female fertility ; and the physicians, old women, and mid- 

 wives drive a lucrative trade in this branch of science. Injec- 

 tions, washes, and suppositories are successively tried, and in this 

 manner introduce the most stimulating substances, such as aloes, 

 myrrh, musk, bezoar, cinnamon, opium, &c. &c. As might be 

 expected, these means often defeat the hopes of the misguided 

 female, and produce abortion. 



" Abortion is very often brought on intentionally, and such 

 attempts are legal and sanctioned by their ritual, provided the 

 foetus is under five months old, for at that period the foetus is 

 supposed first to have life ! Hence, married women frequently ask 

 their acquaintances or physicians for medicines to procure abor- 

 tion, and do not appear to think they are doing wrong. Their 

 object in such cases is to gratify their husbands when unwilHng 

 to have more children, or when they fear that another parturi- 

 tion and nursing would spoil the personal appearance of their 

 ladies.'' 



Uses of Bezoar Stones^ S^-c. — The Turks still place unlimited 

 confidence in the efficacy of Bezoar stones, an article so much 

 used that to replace the natural concretions, found in the sto- 

 machs of certain animals, Pseudo-bezoars exist in Constantinople. 

 This remnant of oriental superstition has not been long expelled 

 from the British Materia Medica, and such stones brought a 

 high price in London less than a century ago. The tears of 

 Turkish saints are in good repute, but, being scarce, are admi- 

 nistered only in extreme cases, and in very minute doses ! I 

 know not whether it may increase the reputation of animal mag- 

 netism among the Parisian philosophers, to be told that it is a 

 favourite remedy with the Arabian dervises and jugglers. 



The orientals place much reliance on the efficacy of saliva in 

 curing diseases, and Dr Oppenheim was forced frequently not 

 merely to give proper medicines, but to spit on the affected part, 

 a superstition derived from the circumstance of most of Mahom- 



