340 Topographical Remarks regarding Afghanistan. 



a vessel containing sweet oil before the patient, then prayed 

 at intervals, and in three days the cure was generally effected, 

 and my informant assured me, that the oil acquired a deep 

 yellow colour. 



Liver complaint I have seldom seen ; occasionally enlarged 

 spleen with dropsy, the sequela of fever. 



Cardialgia, termed by the natives " Dird-i-dil," is a very 

 common affection, and one for which they frequently apply for 

 medicine, and appears to have arisen from the use of cheese, 

 with the almond and other stone fruits as articles of food. A 

 native Hakeem had recommended the use of pounded almonds 

 as a remedy to one unfortunate man, which added greatly to 

 his sufferings. 



But of all diseases, ophthalmia, acute and chronic, and its 

 sequela in the shape of blindness, closed pupil, granular eye- 

 lids, ulcerous specks of the cornea, are by far the most fre- 

 quent, and I believe is to be ascribed to neglect of cleanliness 

 and inattention, assisted by the vicissitudes of temperature, 

 sleeping in open rooms, or on the tops of their houses ex- 

 posed to the night air. I was asked to attend the wife of 

 Hyder Khan, who was labouring under a most severe attack 

 of purulent ophthalmia; the disease had made considerable 

 progress, she was however fortunate enough to recover perfect 

 vision of one eye, and escaped with slight opacity of the 

 other ; it was during my attendance on this native lady, that 

 a great many females applied for advice, and it was sad to find 

 what a great number were irremediably blind from neglect 

 and ignorance. In illustration I may mention, that one of the 

 daughters of one of the principal men in Chandoul was one 

 of the applicants, and by the ad :ce of afakeer, the neck and 

 head of a blue pigeon had been chopped off, burnt, and re- 

 duced to ashes, a portion of which had been daily crammed 

 into the eye. 



Hcemorrhoids is a common affection, and rheumatism not un- 

 frequent ; scrofula also exists, many had well marked cases 



