﻿156 OX THE CUKE OF 



serve. Some blood was taken from him on the same 

 day, and a cathartic administered on the next. On 

 the third day he began to take the arsenic-pitk, and, 

 by the blessing of God, the virulence of his disorder 

 abated by degrees, until signs of returning health ap- 

 peared. In a fortnight his recovery was complete, 

 and he was bathed, according to the practice of our 

 physicians. He seemed to have no virus left in his 

 blood, and none has been since perceived by him. 



But the power of this medicine has chiefly been 

 tried in the cure of the Juzam, as the word is pro- 

 nounced in India ; a disorder infecting the whole 

 fnass of blood, and thence called by some fisadi khun. 

 The former name is derived from an Arabic root 

 signifying, in general, amputation, maiming, excision, 

 and, particularly, the truncation or erosion of the fin- 

 gers, which happens in the last stage of the disease. 

 It is extremely contagious ; and, for that reason, the 

 prophet, said, Ferru mind'lmejdhumi cama teferru 

 mind I asad, or, ' Flee from a person afflicted with the 

 ■ judham, as you would flee from a lion.' The author 

 of the "Bahhru'ljawahir, or Sea of Pearls, ranks it 

 as an infectious malady with the measles, xht small pox, 

 and the plague. It is also hereditary, and, in that res- 

 pect, classed bv medical writers with the gout, the 

 consumption, and the ivhite hprc . 



A common cause of this distemper is the unwhole- 

 some diet of the natives, many of whom are accus- 

 tomed, after eating a quantity of fish, to swallow 

 copious draughts of milk, which fail not to cause an 

 accumulation of yellow and black bile, which min- 

 gles itself with the blood and corrupts it: but it has 

 other causes ; for a Brahmen, who had never tasted 

 fish in his life, applied lately to the composer of this 

 essay, and appeared in the highest degree affected by 



