1839.] Regeneration of Medicine in Egypt. 407 



Although the collection of facts by us adduced appear to prove that the 

 Egyptian government has recognised in principle the social importance 

 of medicine, we grieve to be obliged to add, that the practice of this 

 science in Egypt is still carried on destitute of any check from Govern- 

 ment ; so that now-a-days, as in those of the thickest barbarity, any 

 body may there entitle himself Doctor, and be reputed such, without 

 the superintendence of any superior authority to impede the deplorable 

 results that may ensue. The only examination that is usually made in 

 such matter regards the verification of the title or patents for those 

 that aspire to any post in the Medico-military department, and this 

 examination itself is extremely mild, much more than justice allows ; 

 but with regard to the public practice of the science, it is, we repeat, 

 free of every obstruction. There is no necessity of inculcating how 

 the advantages of humanity and the decorum of the medical body 

 itself demand, that a prompt and peremptory remedy be applied to 

 so dangerous and disgraceful an error. 



European physicians actually practising in Egypt (almost all em- 

 ployed in the army) exceed the ordinary necessity of the country, 

 there being about seventy, not including apothecaries, who also abound. 

 If those persons in place of blindly and systematically professing the 

 opinions of their Masters, belonging as they do to so many different 

 nations, had first well studied the country, so as to modify the pre- 

 cepts they had imbibed, according as the variety of the climate, of the 

 prevalent constitutional maladies, and of the dispositions and other 

 local circumstances required, their operations would doubtless have 

 either dissipated or moderated the various scourges that generally 

 afflict those regions; but as all, or almost all, in place of judiciously 

 using their preconceived opinions, through a misunderstood, and we 

 were about adding, a censurable esprit de corps et de nation, con- 

 tinue to profess there the maxims and precepts inculcated by their 

 respective teachers for generations,* not only widely differing, but often 

 opposed in circumstances, it grieves us to conclude this memoir by 

 stating, that languid humanity has not yet derived in Egypt from this 

 medical anarchy all that aid that it undoubtedly would have received 

 if reason had spoken in place of pertinacity and self-love. For our 

 part, after having studied at length and with accuracy the atmosphe- 

 rical and physical qualities of the country and its inhabitants, we are 

 convinced that abstinence from food, sedatives, bland refreshing purga- 



*The French physicians are fanatically attached to the system of Broussais; the 

 Italian, to that of Tomassini; the English to those of Cullen and Brown ; the German, 

 to those of Schilling and Sprengel, whose doctrine consists in magnetic, electric, 

 and chemical processes ; all discordant in practice. 



