484 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



unction, as alfo by the quantity of water they deluge 

 themfelves with at the time they are hotteft. The in- 

 fluence of the moon in epilepfies, and the certainty with 

 which the third day after the conjundlion brings back 

 the paroxyfm in regular intermitting fevers, is what natu- 

 rally furprifes people not deeper read than I am in the ftu- 

 dy of medicine. Thofe who live much in camps, or in the 

 parts of Atbara far from rivers, have certainly, more or lefs, 

 the gravel, occafioned, probably, by the ufe of well-water ; 

 for at Sennaar, where they drink of rhe river, I never faw 

 but one inflance of it, that of the Sid el Coom ; as for 

 Shekh Ibrahim, whom I fhall fpeak of afterwards, he had 

 paired a great part of his life at Kordofan. The venereal 

 difeafe is frequent here, but never inveterate, infomuch that 

 it does not prevent the marriage of either fex. Sweating 

 and abftinence never fail to cure it, although, where it had 

 continued for a time, I have known mercury fail. 



The elephantiafis, fo common in AbylTmia, is not known, 

 here. The fmall-pox is a difeafe not endemial in the coun- 

 try of Sennaar. It is fometimes twelve or fifteen years 

 without its being known, notwithftanding the conllant in- 

 tercourfe they have with, and merchandizes they bring 

 from Arabia. It is likewife faid this difeafe never broke 

 out in Sennaar, unlefs in the rainy feafon. However, when 

 it comes, it fweeps away a vaft proportion of thofe that are 

 infe6ted : The women, both blacks and Arabs, thofe of 

 the former that live in plains, like the bhillook, or inhabi- 

 tants of El-aice, thofe of the Nuba and Cuba, that live in 

 mountains, all the various fpecics of fiaves that come from 

 Dyre and Tegla, from, time immemorial have known a fpecies 

 of inoculation which they call Tifliteree el Jidderee, or, the 



buying 



