MEDICAL PRACTICES AND SUPERSTITIONS OP KORDOFAN 
305 
The decoction obtained tlius is administered internally and no other form of treatment 
allowed. 
Gonorrhoea 
A ral) methods of cure :— 
1. Powder separately— 
K 3 oz. Gadda (Asafoetida) 
3 oz. Natron (Surface salt) 
3 oz. Shab (Alum) 
Mix together and dissolve in a quantity (?) of hot water. Dose—3 oz. daily. 
Diet —only soup and milk. 
2. The fruit of the Ilanzal (colocynth) is emptied of its seed through a round 
hole at one extremity. The resulting cavity is then filled with milk in the evening, 
which is allowed to stand all night, being drunk on the following morning. The same 
fruit lasts for three days, when if a cure is not complete another should be used. 
3. Kharanami (worm seed), and SheeJi boiled in semu, and half a rotl of the mixture 
drunk every morning. 
4. Injection into the rectum. A solution of Abu Lehbru (? Boerhaavia plumbaginea, 
Cav.) or TJsliar bush fruit (Calotropis procera) is made and injected daily into the rectum 
through the perforated horn of a sheep specially constructed for the purpose. 
5. The root of the Kalto [Xinienia americana, Linn.) ground and ^ oz. of the powder 
added to marissa and drunk every morning for three days. There often results 
considerable diarrhcea and vomiting. 
6. The same drug added to water is used as a urethral injection, the natives using 
a tin syringe of Bnh manufacture, or a pierced horn. 
The native treatment of gonorrhcea is not only ineffective but most dangerous. 
There have been three deaths in the Civil Hospital, El Obeid, during the last year from 
malpraxis in this direction, one from anuria, another from acute ascending nephritis, and 
a third from gangrene of the scrotum and penis. Each of these unfortunates had, prior 
to admission, undergone a course, resulting in severe vomiting, diarrhoea, and acute 
inflammation of the kidneys, with haematuria, the passage of blood being looked upon as 
an essential to the cure. 
7. In the case of the patient who died from anuria, Babah was the drug used (as indeed 
I suspect in all three instances). The two medical officers at present in El Obeid, El 
Yusbashia Saiid Effendi Ayoub, and Michael Effendi Zughayor, each report similar cases 
of death from Babah poisoning, one that of a katib on the White Nile, the other a woman 
at Nahut; in each, severe nephritis was the cause of death. 
8. Medicine No. 1, from Sherkeila ( ? ). A root, powdered—1 dr. added to half 
a rotl of semn, or I rotl beef-tea taken every morning for three days. 
The diet is important. Nothing should be eaten before noon; between noon and 
sundown, mutton; after sundown, anything except Bamia (elsewhere used as a cure 
for the same disease), which must be rigidly avoided. 
9. Root No. 3, from Sherkeila ( ? ). A root, powdered, and 3 dr. mixed with 3 oz. 
of soured milk, to be given every morning for four days consecutively. 
Nothing should be taken before noon, and only chicken soup and plenty of water 
drunk after this hour. 
This treatment is also employed for the cure of “ Har Boul,” burning on micturition 
common amongst Arab and Sudanese children, from the presence of gravel, and 
concentrated acid urine. 
In most of these treatments for gonorrhcEa, starvation seems to play an important 
part, as also drastic purging. 
u 
Treatment of 
gonorrhoea 
Dangerous 
native 
treatment of 
gonorrhoea 
