DISEASES. 



319 



entirely to the vis medicatrix. There is a milder form 

 of the malady, called shiirud, resembling the chicken-pox 

 of Europe; it is cured by bathing in cold water and 

 smearing the body with ochreish earth. The Arab 

 merchants of Unyanyembe declare that, when they first 

 visited Karagwah, the people were decimated by the 

 taun, or plague. They describe correctly the bubo under 

 the axillse, the torturing thirst, and the rapid fatality of 

 the disease. In the early part of 1859 a violent attack 

 of cholera, which extended from Maskat along the eastern 

 coast of Arabia and Africa, committed terrible ravages 

 in the island of Zanzibar and throughout the maritime 

 regions. Of course, no precautions of quarantine or 

 cordon militaire were taken, yet the contagion did not 

 extend into the interior. 



Strangers in East Africa suffer from dysenteries and 

 similar disorders consequent upon fever; and, as in 

 Egypt, few are free from haemorrhoids, which in Unyam- 

 wezi are accompanied by severe colics and umbilical 

 pains. Rheumatism and rheumatic fever, severe catarrhs 

 and influenzas, are caused by the cold winds, and, when 

 crossing the higher altitudes, pneumonia and pleurisis 

 abound in the caravan. On the coast many settlers, 

 Indian and Arab, show upon the skin whitish leprous 

 spots, which are treated with various unguents. In the 

 interior, though well provided with fresh meat and 

 vegetables, travellers are attacked by scurvy, even in the 

 absence of its normal exciting causes, damp, cold, and 

 poor diet. This phenomenon has often been observed 

 upon the upper course of the Nile ; Europeans have been 

 prostrated by it ■ even in the dry regions westward of the 

 Red Sea, and the Portuguese officers who explored 

 Usenda of the Kazembe suffered tortures from the com- 

 plaint. 



