﻿THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 155 



seven years, it loses much of its force ; its colour 

 becomes turbid, and its weight is diminished. This 

 mineral is hot and dry in the fourth degree : it causes 

 suppuration, dissolves or unites, according to the 

 quantity given, and is very useful in closing the lips 

 of wounds when the pain is too intense to be borne. 

 An unguent made of it with oils of any sort, is an 

 effectual remedy for some cutaneous disorders ; and, 

 mixed with rose water, it is good tor cold tumours, 

 and for the dropsy ; but it must never be administered 

 without the greatest caution ; for such is its power, 

 that the smallest quantity of it in powder, drawn, like 

 alcohol, between the eye-lashes, would in a single day 

 entirely corrode the coats and humours of the eye; 

 and fouiteen retls of it would in the same time de- 

 stroy life. The best antidote against its effects are 

 the scrapings of leather reduced to ashes. If the 

 quantity of arsenic taken be accurately known, four 

 times as much of those ashes, mixed with water and 

 dr^nk by the patient, will sheath and counteract the 

 poison. 



The writer, conformably to the directions of his 

 learned friend, prepared the medicine; and, in the 

 same year, gave ii to numbers, who were reduced by 

 he diseases above mentioned to the point of death. 

 God is his witness that they grew better from day 

 to day, were at last completely cured, and are now 

 living (except one or two, who died of other disor- 

 ders) to attest the truth of this assertion. One of his 

 first patients was a Par si, named Menuchehr, who had 

 come from Surat to this city, and had fixed his abode 

 near the writer's house : he was so cruelly afflicted 

 with a confirmed lues, here called the Persian Fire, 

 that his hands and feet were entirely ulcerated and al- 

 most corroded, so that he became an object of disgust 

 and abhorrence. This man consulted the writer on 

 h'is case, the state of which he disclosed without re- 



