( 139 ) 



Addition, by the Translator. 



It may not be unacceptable to the reader^ to fee what has been faid on 

 this fubject by Sir William Temple, who was cotemporary with our author, 

 and one of the mofl: eminent perfons of his time. He himfelf tried the 

 application of Moxa in a fit of the Gout, and the follo\ving is an extraft from 

 his Mifcellanea, in his ElTay on the Cure of the Gout by Moxa. 



" Being in the feven-and-fortieth year of my age, at the Hague, about 

 " the end of February, one night at fupper, I felt a fudden pain in my 

 *' right foot, which, from the firft moment it began, increafed fenfibly. I 

 " went to bed, but it raged fo much all night, that I could not fleep a wink. 

 " I endured it till the next morning, and then making my complaints and 

 " Ihewing my foot, they found it very red and angry, and to relieve my ex- 

 " tremity of pain, began to apply common poultices to it, and by the fre- 

 " quent change of them I found fome eafe, and continued this exercife all 

 " that day and a great part of the following night, which I paffed with very 

 " little reft. The morning after, my foot began to fwell, and the violence 

 " of my pain to affuage, though it left fuch a forenefs, that I could hardly 

 " fufFer the clothes on my bed, nor ftir my foot but as it was lifted. 



" By this time my illnefs was concluded to be the Gout, and among many 

 " other friends who came to fee me, Monfieur Zulichem paid me a vifit, 

 *■ and in talking of my illnefs, he afked me whether I had ever heard the 

 " Indian way of curing the Gout by Moxa. This Moxa, he faid, was a 

 " certain kind of mofs that grew in the Eaft Indies ; that their way was, 

 " whenever any body fell into a fit of the Gout, to take a fmall quantity of 

 " it, and form it into a figure, broad at bottom as a two-pence, and pointed 

 " at top ; to fet the bottom exaflly upon the place where the violence of the 

 " pain was fixed, then with a fmall round perfumed match (made likewife 

 " in the Indies), to give fire to the top of the mofs, which burning down 

 " by degrees, came at length to the fliin, and burn it till the mofs was con- 

 " fumed to alhes. That many times the firft burning would remove the 

 " pain, if not, it was to be renewed a fecond, third, and fourth time, till it 

 '• went away, and till the perfon found he could fet his foot boldly to the 

 " ground and walk. This operation Monfieur Zulichem faid, lie became 

 *« acquainted with by the relation of feveral who had feen and tried it in the 



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