Madden's Travels in Turkey, fyc. 115 



dicine, in the countries through which he travelled, and he 

 appears to have availed himself of them most fully. It shall 

 be our object to lay before the reader the substance of the 

 author's observations on these important topics, following, 

 however, our own arrangement of the matter. It may be pro- 

 per to premise, that Mr. Madden's Travels are written in the 

 form of letters to his principal friends, whom he addresses on 

 the subjects adapted to their respective capacities. His female 

 acquaintances are entertained with the description of a Turkish 

 toilette, and an occasional poetical effusion. The Reverend Mr. 

 M'Pherson receives copious details concerning the Route of 

 the Israelites, and the passage of the Red Sea. A letter to 

 Thomas Coltman, Esq., barrister, affords the opportunity of 

 describing the state of Turkish law, and its formidable ad- 

 juncts, the sack, the bowstring, and the bastinado ; while his 

 medical friends, Dr. James Johnson, Dr. Gregory, and Mr. 

 Joshua Brookes are favoured with accounts of vapour-baths, 

 amulets, and madjouns, the dysentery, the ague, and many 

 such plagues and pestilences. 



The volumes teem with accounts of the low condition to 

 which medical science is reduced throughout Turkey ; and such 

 probably it was throughout all Europe not many centuries 

 back. It has been well remarked, that the state of medicine 

 may be considered as the criterion or barometer of the state of 

 science in any country. Wherever science and refinement 

 have extended their influence, there will medicine be most 

 cherished, as being so eminently conducive to the interests and 

 happiness of mankind. The following lively sketch of the 

 mode of conducting business at Constantinople will illustrate 

 this remark : — 



" There are about fifty medical practitioners in Constantinople, 

 principally Franks, from Italy and Malta, and a few Ionian Greeks, 

 Armenians, and Copts ; of this number there are, perhaps, five 

 regularly educated physicians, and two of these are English gentle- 

 men, highly respected, both by the Turks and Franks. Every 

 medico has his allotted quarter ; he beats this ground daily in pur- 

 suit of patients, and visits all the coffeehouses in the district with a 

 Greek drogueman y as interpreter, at his heels, whose occupation it 

 is to scent out sickness, and to extol the doctor. They are ever to 

 be found on the most public bench of the coffeeshop, smoking with 

 profound gravity, and prying into the features of those around 

 them, for a symptom of disease. I confess I had to descend to 

 this degradation, to get practice, in order to become acquainted 

 with the domestic customs of the people. The first day my drogue- 

 man, whc had just left the service of a Roman doctor, and had 

 been practising on his own account since his discharge (for all 



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