THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 7 



muriatic acid. More recently I tried the same remedy with 

 other patients for the malady, but without any success. I 

 deduce from this, that the substances of the stones ia 

 the latter cases were not the same as with my patient at 

 Cairo, and that muriatic acid has not always the quality of 

 dissolving stony concretions. Not finding any dissolving 

 medicine that would act universally, I was obliged to effect 

 the cure of stone in the bladder by an operation with the in- 

 strument. In Syria there were also Arabs, known as stone- 

 operators, who adhered to the old method of Celsus, i.e., to 

 bring the stone down by introducing the fingers into the 

 rectum, and cutting it out through the perinoeum ; but I 

 preferred the apparatus altus, where the stone is cut out from 

 the bladder, through the pyramidal muscle of the belly, 

 which produced a very great sensation, and obtained for me 

 the name of a skilful operator. The first operation for the 

 stone I made was on Mount Lebanon. Afterwards I per- 

 formed similar operations at Damascus, Bagdad, Persia, In- 

 dia, and even at Bokhara, as the reader will find. 



In the year 1822, I began to vaccinate in Syria, with a 

 lymph received from Aleppo, which acted well. Two parti- 

 cular cases which occurred at the villages in the neighbour- 

 hood of Tripoli (Syria) deserve especially to be mentioned 

 here. The small-pox raged epidemically in those places, in a 

 horrible manne r, killing adults as well as infants, without any 

 distinction. The use of vaccination was as little known in 

 Syria, as it was in Europe before the time of Jenner, and I 

 was just in the centre, or rather in the focus of that epidemi- 

 cal disease. A widow having two children, one son aad a 

 daughter, the latter of whom she loved and idolized, insist- 

 ed upon only permitting the male to be inoculated, and if it 

 should prove successful she would allow the operation to be 

 performed on her fondled darling, the daughter. Accordingly 

 I only vaccinated the son. When I visited him, after a lapse 

 of eight days, I found the mother in despair, her daughter 

 having during the interval died of the small-pox, whilst the 

 boy was quite well, with large pustules like pearls on his 

 arms ; she regretted, but too late, not having followed ray 



