126 HISTORY OF 



the tombs is choked up with sand; there are 

 many open, but several more that are still con- 

 cealed. The inhabitants of the neighbouring 

 village have no other commerce, or method of 

 subsisting, but by seeking out mummies, and 

 selling them to such strangers as happen to be 

 at Grand Cairo. " This commerce, some years 

 ago, was not only a very common, but a very 

 gainful one. A complete mummy was often sold 

 for twenty pounds : but it must not be supposed 

 that it was bought at such a high price from a 

 mere passion for antiquity ; there were much 

 more powerful motives for this traffic. Mummy, 

 at that time, made a considerable article in me- 

 dicine ; and a thousand imaginary virtues were 

 ascribed to it, for the cure of most disorders, par- 

 ticularly of the paralytic kind. There was no 

 shop, therefore, without mummy in it; and no 

 physician thought he had properly treated his 

 patient, without adding this to his prescription. 

 Induced by the general repute in which this 

 supposed drug was at that time, several Jews, 

 both of Italy and France, found out the art of 

 imitating mummy so exactly, that they for a 

 long time deceived all Europe. This they did 

 by drying dead bodies in ovens, after having pre- 

 pared them with myrrh, aloes, and bitumen. 

 Still, however, the request for mummies conti- 

 nued, and a variety of cures were daily ascribed 

 to them. At length Paraeus wrote a treatise on 

 their total inefficacy in physic, and showed their 

 abuse in loading the stomach, to the exclusion 

 of more efficacious medicines. From that time, 



