DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 
73 
of mimosa burnt and reduced to powder serves for all 
sorts of cuts^ burns^ contusions, &c. They make an oint- 
ment of it, by mixing it with butter, and rub it on the part 
twice a day. The leaf of the bauhmia pounded, and mixed 
with powdered gum and water, is a recipe for aches ; they 
lay it like a poultice on the part affected, and the gum when 
dry forms a crust, which they leave to fall off of itself; 
they sometimes burn the gum before they make use of it. 
For pain in the face occasioned by cold, they have a special 
remedy in a certain very hard red stone, which they find 
on the mountains ; they reduce it to powder by grating it 
against a flint, and rub the powder in a dry state upon the 
part. It is common to see people with half the face red — 
sometimes an eye, or part of the cheek : this stone is called 
lahmiri ; I consider it to be a sort of red lead, and the 
Moors make ink of it by mixing it with gum water. I 
wished to have brought home a specimen of this stone, but 
1 looked for it in vain, and could never persuade any one 
to give me a bit. The Moors are subject to fever, for 
which they have no remedy, but they drink gum and milk 
when they are attacked with it. I saw a woman, who had 
had a fever for a month, rub her head with very hot butter, 
in which pounded cloves had been steeped. 
Aperients are seldom employed, although they are 
acquainted with the use of them. They collect senna, and 
call it falag4 ; when they mean to make use of it, they 
bruise it in a mortar with the fruit of the ziziphus lotus, 
and dilute the powder in a considerable quantity of water, 
which they give to the patient to drink. They have another 
plant which they use as an aperient, which is less potent 
in its effects. 
The itch, so common among the negroes, is rare with 
the Moors. Whoever is attacked with it is shut out from 
society ; he is forbidden to enter the mosque ; a mat is 
spread in one corner of a tent for his bed, and nobody drinks 
