j8 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



place^ called him in. He suffered, he told him, a very 

 severe pain in his head. The surgeon was inconsi- 

 derate enough to prescribe for him that which a 

 physician in this country must not presume to men- 

 tion. On a sudden the Mussulman was in a fury, 

 that in order to cure a complaint in the head, an 

 appHcation was to be made to a part diametrically 

 opposite : he drew out his sabre, arose from his 

 divan, loaded the Frenchman with imprecations, 

 and would have struck him with his scymilar, if 

 he had not found means to evade the blow. 



But such mistakes as these are not the only dan- 

 gers to be encountered in the practice of physic in 

 Egypt. If it happens that the sick person sinks 

 under his disease, his physician must not expect the 

 same indulgence which, in Europe, charitably re- 

 moving from him every kind of reproach, contents 

 tself with ascribing the death of the patient to the 

 incurable nature of his disorder, or to the patient 

 himself. He is regarded as an assassin. The fa- 

 mily, the neighbours of the victim, even the popu- 

 lace, always disposed to rise up against foreigners 

 whom they hold in abhorrence, unite together; 

 the massacre of the physician succeeds almost im- 

 mediately the loss of his patient ; and he is made 

 a sacrifice to the manes of the dead, and to the 

 vengeance of the living. 



On 



1 



