396 Regeneration of Medicine in Egypt. L^Y, 



cal studies, and the practice of medicine in Egypt, exclusively belongs 

 to them. 



Nevertheless it is undoubted, that scarcely had the Italians taken the 

 first step in the beneficent restoration (1824,) than the eminent Doctor 

 Clot, a Frenchman in the Viceroy's service as Physician and Surgeon- 

 General, succeeded, with several other sanitarian officers, countrymen 

 of his, in completing the fabric thus commenced ; and we are far from 

 denying him our meed of well-merited praise, and avow and acknowledge 

 with pleasure the very important services rendered by him to the 

 science and to the country. But he completed, and did not commence, 

 the work : this is what truth compels us to affirm distinctly. Especi- 

 ally as in all the improvements introduced by him, hjis designs were 

 never disunited from those of Martini, Inspector-General of the Mili- 

 tary Medical Service. 



Au reste, when we allude to the regeneration of medicine in Egypt, 

 we are very far from understanding that the science is as flourishing 

 and diffused there as the phrase may seem prima facie to imply ; 

 for although there exists a remarkable difference for the better be- 

 tween the past and the present, it is undeniable, nevertheless, that the 

 new plant has not yet produced that fruit which might have been ex- 

 pected from it. A mournful fact, but no less authentic, as will evident- 

 ly appear from the particulars we are about to enumerate. 



Having premised these brief observations on the historical part of the 

 subject (for the correctness of which we ourselves carefully vouch, hav- 

 ing been not only witnesses, but a party of what we relate) we shall 

 now proceed to lay down, in separate paragraphs, those special points, 

 from the assemblage of which results the actual state of medical know- 

 ledge in that country. 



The establishment of an Hospital at Abou-Zabel (a village about 

 twelve Italian miles to the north of Cairo, on the borders of the desert 

 of Kanka) was, as we have stated, the first countersign of the regener- 

 ation of medical knowledge in Egypt. 



Beside the salubrity of the air, and the abundance of water (al- 

 though the latter is somewhat brackish), and all other conveniences 

 requisite for the erection of such institutions, all wonderfully concur- 

 ring at Abou-Zabel, this spot was selected especially because being 

 close to the review-field of the new Egyptian troops, it might readily 

 serve for the care of the invalids ; and the Government would thus 

 have before its eyes a practical example of the advantages that its 

 armies might in time derive from that sort of sanitary establishments. 

 The edifice was erected a. d. 1822 on the ruins of ancient cavalry 

 barracks: it was completed six years after (1827) when Dr. Clot, 



