116 On the State ()f Medicine in 



obstinately refused permission to do this, but still insisted upon 

 my giving some medicines. With tliis request I complied at 

 last, and sent powders composed of white sugar, &c. I did not 

 fare much better in a visit I soon after made to a third harem. 

 I was received with the customary ceremony, and treated with 

 the usual hospitality ; walking in the garden with the husband 

 of the sick lady, I asked him concerning her symptoms. He 

 answered that he knew nothing about them, but that the infor- 

 mation I required was not necessary, for he intended to let me 

 feel her pulse. I found her lying on the floor supported by 

 pillows, like the lady I had first visited, but much more scru- 

 pulously covered and concealed from view, so that indeed it 

 seemed scarcely credible, that such a mass of pillows, bolsters, 

 and shawls, could be piled on a human being. I was not per- 

 mitted to ask any questions, but when I was seated beside the 

 patient, her husband said, The physician is there ; whereupon 

 the hand and arm, most carefully shrouded and covered, except 

 at the wrist, where a bare space was left for the finger of the 

 physician, were protruded from the mass of pillows. When I 

 had felt the pulse I was conducted out, and it then took me 

 more than hour to obtain answers to the necessary questions ; 

 for a special message had to be sent into the harem to inquire 

 about each particular symptom and circumstance, such as the 

 patient's sleep, the state of her bowels, thirst, uneasy sensations, 

 &c. &c. In the end it turned to be a case of simple catarrhal 

 fever, and yielded to a sal-ammoniac mixture *. During the 

 three years and a half I practised in Turkey, I had at least an 

 hundred attendances in harems, and have always found that the 

 young and beautiful are the least careful of concealing them- 

 selves from view, while it was always impossible to get a glimpse 

 at the more elderly and faded. When the veil is allowed to 

 perform its duty undisturbed during the whole of his visit, the 

 physician may be sure that the wearer's beauty is on the wane. 

 The jealousy of the husband seems to increase with the number 

 of his wives, and when his harem contains but one, the physi- 



• The muriate of ammonia is much used in Germany, in various febrile 

 and chronic complaints. It appears to be a remedy deserving of attention, 

 and I shall therefore take an opportimity hereafter of explaining its medicinai 

 virtues. 



