10 TKIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 



me not to go there, as in their opinion an epidemical 

 disease was raging at that place ; but I did not listen 

 to their warnings as I wished to be useful to those 

 people who had implored my assistance, and at the same 

 time to extend my experience. When I was near the 

 village, I saw a great many Maronite girls (Christians^ 

 coming back from the well, with pitchers on their heads, 

 each of them holding an onion in their hands, at which they 

 frequently smelled. 



The epidemical disease had the character of a Synochus, 

 and several persons had died suddenly, which caused great 

 alarm among the inhabitants. The silk gathering was 

 just ended, and I found the diseased were located in 

 miserable, low houses, deprived of fresh air ; I thought 

 it advisable to cause them to be removed from their babita- 

 ations, and brought into the manufactories, where previously 

 the silk worms had been ; and the result of my treatment 

 was, that none of my patients died of that disease. I was 

 conducted from Mesrut-ul-Toofah, to a place a little 

 farther up the Lebanon, to Atto, where the former French 

 interpreter, Isaac Torbei, was confined to his bed with 

 Angina, and was unable to articulate, in spite of all his 

 efiforts to do so. I examined his throat, and found an abscess 

 therein, which I opened immediately ; by which operation 

 my patient was able to talk instantly, and after a few days 

 he entirely recovered. 



From Aito, I was brought to Kannobin, to the resi- 

 dence of the Maronitan patriarch, where the Bishop Mootran 

 Seman lay very ill, Kannobin is situated on a declivity, 

 from whence a beautiful view is obtained of the valley. 

 It is by no means a town, as the Dictionnaire Encyclop- 

 edique Ferancaise (second edition) erronously asserts, it 

 being merely a convent. There is a curious custom 

 attached to this country, and in most places of Asia. A 

 physician being called on to attend a sick person, it is 

 first arranged as to how much he will require for curing 

 the same ; upon that arrangement being completed, the 

 physician receives one moity of the sum agreed upon, and 



