GRAMINEM 595 



industry in tlie sliape of millstones, &c., still exist near 

 Ahwas, 



Persian and Arabian physicians of the lOtli and llth 

 centuries, such as Razi, Ali Abbas, and Ibn Sina, introduced 

 sugar { j^ Sukkar ) into medicine. The Arabs cultivated the 

 cane in many of their Mediterz'anean settlements, as Cyprus, 

 Sicily, Italy, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Calendar of 

 Cordova shows that as early as A.D. 961 the cultivation was 

 ^vell understood in Spain, which is now the only country in 

 Europe where sugar-mills still exist. 



The importance of the sugar manufacture in the East was 

 witnessed by Marco Polo, Barbosa, and other European 

 travellers ; and the trading nations of Europe rapidly spread 

 the cultivation of the cane over all the countries of which the 

 climate was suitable. The ancient cultivation in Egypt, 

 probably never quite extinct, was revised on au extensive scale 

 by the Khedive Ismail Pasha. {Pharmacographia.) 



Sugar is of comparatively little value for its independent 

 effects, but few substances are more useful as an associate of 

 other medicines, whether to preserve them from oxidation 

 and decomposition, to conceal or improve their taste, or 

 to give them special pharmaceutical forms. 



Is solution sugar is almost exclusively lenitive, but in 

 powder it is stimulant. It is imiversally employed to diminish 

 dryness of the mouth and fauces, to allay irritation, and to 

 mitigate cough and hoarseness. Sugar dissolved inwaterissaid 

 to have a diuretic effect. When injected into the veins of ani- 

 »ials it is said to be powerfully diuretic (Richet and M. Martin, 



Med. Record, xxi., 394). It certainly, when moderately 



^sed, promotes digestion and allays nervous excitement. For 

 these purposes sweetened water {eau sucree) is universally 

 employed in France and Southern Europe. Formerly a strong 

 solution of sugar was much used as an antidote to corrosive 

 poisons. It enters into all the drinks, mucilaginous, farina- 

 ceous, and gelatinous, employed in febrile diseases. Finely- 

 powdered sugar will sometimes relieve the hiccough, which, in 



