"I knew a man," says one, "who was being bled like that, and kept on saying, 'take a little more,' till he fell back dead in our arms."
"Yes," chimes in another, "I have heard of such cases; it is very dangerous."
Although the patient is evidently growing very nervous, our surgical friend affects supreme indifference to all this tittle-tattle, and after a while removes the bandage, bending the forearm inward, with the effect of somewhat checking the flow of blood. When he has bound up with list the cane that holds the lancets, he closes the forearm back entirely, so that the flow is stopped. Opening it again a little, he wipes a sponge over the aperture a few times, and closes it with his thumb. Then he binds a bit of filthy rag round the arm, twisting it above and below the elbow alternately, and crossing over the incision each time. When this is done, he sends the patient to throw away the blood and wash[page 169] the plate, receiving for the whole operation the sum of three half-pence.
Another patient is waiting his turn, an old man desiring to be bled behind the ears for headache. After shaving two patches for the purpose, the "bleeder," as he is justly called, makes eighteen scratches close together, about half an inch long. Over these he places a brass cup of the shape of a high Italian hat without the brim. From near the edge of this protrudes a long brass tube with a piece of leather round and over the end. This the operator sucks to create a vacuum, the moistened leather closing like a valve, which leaves the cup hanging in situ. Repeating this on the other side, he empties the first cup of the blood which has by this time accumulated in it, and so on alternately, till he has drawn off what appears to him to be sufficient. All that remains to be done is to wipe the wounds and receive the fee.
Some years ago such a worthy as this earned quite a reputation for exorcising devils in Southern Morocco. His mode of procedure was brief, but as a rule effective. The patient was laid on the ground before the wise man's tent, face downward, and after reading certain mystic and unintelligible passages, selected from one of the ponderous tomes which form a prominent part of the "doctor's" stock-in-trade, he solemnly ordered two or three men to hold the sufferer down while two more thrashed him till they were tired. If, when released, the patient showed the least sign of returning violence, or complained that the whole affair was a fraud, it was taken as a sure sign that he had not had enough, and he was forthwith seized again[page 170] and the dose repeated till he had learned that discretion was the better part of valour, and slunk off, perhaps a wiser, certainly a sadder man. It is said, and I do not doubt it—though it is more than most medical men can say of their patients—that no one was ever known to return in quest of further treatment.
All this, however, is nothing compared with the Moor's love of fire as a universal panacea. Not only for his mules and his horses, but also for himself and his family, cauterization is in high repute, especially as he estimates the value of a remedy as much by its immediate and visible action as by its ultimate effects. The "fire-doctor" is therefore even a greater character in his way than the "bleeder," whom we have just visited. His outfit includes a collection of queer-shaped irons designed to cauterize different parts of the body, a portable brazier, and bellows made from a goat-skin with a piece of board at one side wherewith to press and expel the air through a tube on the other side. He, too, sits by the roadside, and disposes of his groaning though wonderfully enduring "patients" much as did his rival of the lancet. Rohlfs, a German doctor who explored parts of Morocco in the garb of a native, exercising what he could of his profession for a livelihood, tells how he earned a considerable reputation by the introduction of "cold fire" (lunar caustic) as a rival to the original style; and Pellow, an English slave who made his escape in 1735, found cayenne pepper of great assistance in ingratiating himself with the Moors in this way, and even in delaying a pursuer suffering from ophthalmia by blowing a little into his eyes before his identity[page 171] was discovered. In extenuation of this trick, however, it must be borne in mind that cayenne pepper is an accredited Moorish remedy for ophthalmia, being placed on the eyelids, though it is only a mixture of canary seed and sugar that is blown in.
Every European traveller in Morocco is supposed to know something about medicine, and many have been my own amusing experiences in this direction. Nothing that I used gave me greater fame than a bottle of oil of cantharides, the contents of which I applied freely behind the ears or upon the temples of such victims of ophthalmia as submitted themselves to my tender mercies. Only I found that when my first patient began to dance with the joy and pain of the noble blister which shortly arose, so many people fancied they needed like treatment that I was obliged to restrict the use of so popular a cure to special cases.
One branch of Moroccan medicine consists in exorcising devils, of which a most amusing instance once came under my notice. An English gentleman gave one of his servants who complained of being troubled with these unwelcome guests two good-sized doses of tartaric acid and carbonate of soda a second apart. The immediate exit of the devil was so apparent that the fame of the prescriber as a medical man was made at once. But many of the cases which the amateur is called upon to treat are much more difficult to satisfy than this. Superstition is so strongly mingled with the native ideas of disease,—of being possessed,—that the two can hardly be separated. During an epidemic of cholera, for instance, the people keep as close as possible to[page 172] walls, and avoid sand-hills, for fear of "catching devils." All disease is indeed more or less ascribed to satanic agency, and in Morocco that practitioner is most in repute who claims to attack this cause of the malady rather than its effect.
Although the Moors have a certain rudimentary acquaintance with simple medicinal agents—and how rudimentary that acquaintance is, will better appear from what is to follow,—in all their pharmacopœia no remedy is so often recommended or so implicitly relied on as the "writing" of a man of reputed sanctity. Such a writing may consist merely of a piece of paper scribbled over with the name of God, or with some sentence from the Korán, such as, "And only God is the Healer," repeated many times, or in special cases it may contain a whole series of pious expressions and meaningless incantations. For an ordinary external complaint, such as general debility arising from the evil eye of a neighbour or a jealous wife, or as a preventative against bewitchment, or as a love philtre, it is usually considered sufficient to wear this in a leather bag around the neck or forehead; but in case of unfathomable internal disease, such as indigestion, the "writing" is prescribed to be divided into so many equal portions, and taken in a little water night and morning.
The author of these potent documents is sometimes a hereditary saint descended from Mohammed, sometimes a saint whose sanctity arises from real or assumed insanity—for to be mad in Barbary is to have one's thoughts so occupied with things of heaven as to have no time left for things of earth,—and often they are written by ordinary public[page 173] scribes, or schoolmasters, for among the Moors reading and religion are almost synonymous terms. There are, however, a few professional gentlemen who dispense these writings among their drugs. Such alone of all their quacks aspire to the title of "doctor." Most of these spend their time wandering about the country from fair to fair, setting up their tents wherever there are patients to be found in sufficient numbers.