232 
ON MEDICINE AND PHARMACY IN TURKEY. 
An abuse tolerated by authority, and which seriously injures the 
Pharmaciens, is the sale by merchants of every description of 
medicine, not only by wholesale, but even in single doses, and at a 
very low price, from which it follows that most of the Turks and 
Armenians in cases of small importance, never apply to a Physi- 
cian, but always go to these Druggists for some simple remedy, 
such as senna, cassia, tamarinds, &c, of which the vender himself 
makes a decoction if the patient desire it. 
Among the medicinal substances also found in these bazaars, I 
may mention different conserves of roses, of cedar, of orange 
flowers mixed with strong aromatics, such as cloves, ginger, amber, 
and musk, which electuaries are considered by the Turks as uni- 
versal panaceas ; syrup of alkermes, Leroy's mixture, antisyphili- 
tic syrup, sarsaparilla, sassafras, pistachios, almonds of the pinus 
cembra, nuts, opium, many narcotic tinctures, bad preparations of 
cannabis, &c, &c. 
The weights used by the Turks are okas (2 Jibs.) and drachms : 
for measuring liquors in drops, grains of corn are used. The inac- 
curacy of this measurement is obvious, as some Pharmaciens for 
the sake of gain, purposely select the smallest grains possible. As 
Pharmaciens are not obliged to prepare their medicines by any 
dispensatory published by authority, each has his own process. It 
follows that the same medicine obtained at different shops, is en- 
tirely different in its medicinal properties. 
This is an outline of the state of Pharmacy and Medicine in the 
principal towns of Turkey, and the further you advance into Asia 
Minor, the more does this merge into empiricism, and the practice 
of medicine is found in the hands of ignorant and grasping quacks, 
whose only desire is to obtain money and to sell for 200 or 300 
piastres the most insignificant remedy, by making the credulous 
consumers believe that it is prepared with gold or precious stones. 
Sometimes, in the presence of the purchasers, to induce a belief in 
their statements, they throw gold and precious stones into a colored 
and acidulated liquid, which is to form the desired remedy. A 
friend of mine, quite worthy of belief, who resided several years in 
the interior of Asia Minor, assured me that he had seen a /combo- 
janite physician, who was instructed to prepare for a pacha a 
remedy for a jaundice, throw thirty ducats, a quantity of pearls and 
jewellery, in a red liquor to dissolve them. The liquor was evapo- 
