Among general remedies are the following: The eyes of sheep sacrificed at the Id-i-Gurban at Mecca are dried and kept as powerful charms for sickness. When used they are moistened and applied to the forehead. Another remedy consists of bread and meat, collected from seven bakers and butchers. The food, when prepared, is taken, together with a doll, to the grave of a saint, after which some of it is eaten and the remainder distributed to the poor. This effects the cure. Yet another curious treatment is to cover up the patient’s head while a man walks round him with lighted straw, uttering certain special prayers during the fumigation.
As to children’s ailments: if a child cries too much, straw is swept up from three roads, dust is taken from the footprints of passers-by and Syrian rue is collected from the desert; the mixture is then lighted and the child is cured by being held over the smoke. If a child suffers from deafness, one method is to call in the services of a trumpeter, who spits into the ear, while another plan is to cut seven small twigs, wrap them up in cotton and, on market day, to tie the little bundle to the ear of a donkey loaded with salt. For other ailments, seven coral beads are thrown into a spring; or, again, copper pieces are begged from seven men named Mohamed, others are added by the parents, and a charm is made to hang round the child’s neck.
Finally, there are certain shrines famous for the cure of specific diseases. For skin disease a shrine known as the Sigm is much frequented. There mud is taken from a well outside and thrown at the wall with a prayer to the saint, after which the suppliant walks away without looking back.
A WOMAN THROWING MUD TO EFFECT A CURE.
Page 320.
I conclude this brief account of the treatment of diseases in Kashgar by a story entitled “The Clever Physician”:[17]
“Once upon a time there was a physician. When this physician entered the room where the sick person was, he looked all about it, and whatever met his eyes in the shape of an eatable, he looked at the patient and said, ‘You have eaten such and such a thing and that is what has done you harm.’ The physician had a pupil, and wherever the physician went, there went his pupil with him. A rich man had become paralysed, that is to say, unable to walk. Many physicians had treated him, but his disease did not abate. At last, having heard that the aforesaid physician’s pupil was a wonderful medical adept, he summoned him to his house.
“When the physician’s pupil had entered the house and had carefully looked round, he perceived that there was nothing at all in the shape of an eatable in it, but in one corner of the room an old donkey-saddle had been thrown down. When he saw this he exclaimed, ‘Oh, rich man! you have eaten an old donkey-saddle, through which your disease has increased and you have become paralysed.’ When he said this, the rich man was very angry, and exclaiming, ‘Does one who is called a human being eat donkey-saddles?’ sprang up in his rage in order to beat him and—walked!
“The physician, poor fellow, was terrified and had fled away. The rich man was struck with wonder and exclaimed, ‘This is a great man; for my leg, which grew no better for any physician’s medicine, has now become quite well through this person.’ He caused the physician’s pupil to be summoned, apologized to him, and sent him away with many valuable gifts.”