484 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER ee 
unction, as alfo by the quantity of water they deluge ~ 
chemfelves with at the time they are hotteft. The in- 
fluence of the moon in epilepfies, and the certainty with 
which the third day after the conjunction brings back 
the paroxy{m in regular intermitting fevers, is what natu- 
rally furprifes people not deeper read than I am in the ftu- 
dy of medicine. Thofe who live much in camps, or in the 
parts of Atbara far from rivers, have certainly, more or lefs, 
the gravel, occafioned, probably, by the ufe of well-water ; 
for at Sennaar, where they drink of the river, I never faw 
but one inftance of it, that of the Sid eleCoom; as for 
Shekh Ibrahim, whom I fhall fpeak of afterwards, he had 
paffed a great part of his life at Kordofan, The’ venereal 
difeafe is frequent here, but never inveterate, infomuch that 
it does not prevent the marriage of either fex. Sweating 
and abftinence never fail to cure it, although, where it had 
continued for a time, I have known mercury fail, 
Tue elephantiafis, fo common in Abyflinia, is not known 
here. The fmall-pox is a difeafe not endemial in the coun- 
try of Sennaar. It is fometimes twelve or fifteen years 
without its being known, notwithftanding the conftant in- 
tercourfe they have with, and merchandizes they bring 
from Arabia. It is likewife faid this difeafe never broke 
out in Sennaar, unlefs in the rainy feafon. However, when 
it comes, it {weeps away a vaft proportion of thofe that are 
infe¢tted: The women, both blacks and Arabs, thofe of 
the former that live in plains, like the Shillook, or inhabi- 
tants of ElLaice, thofe of the Nuba and Guba, that live in 
mountains, all the various ipecies of flaves that come from 
Dyreand Tegla, from time immentorial have knowna fpecies 
of inoculation which they call Tithteree el Jidderce, or, the 
buying 
\ 
‘ \ 
Pe ee 
