Amongst the fraternity constituting the monks of the various convents, there is always one or more somewhat skilled in the art of healing; and generally attached to these establishments, as in the instance of the convent on Mount Carmel, is a dispensary well stocked with drugs, and with the newest and best medicines
recognised and used by physicians. In some few of the principal towns in Syria there are resident European doctors, principally Italians and Frenchmen, with a sprinkling of Germans and Poles, and one or two Americans. With the exception of the last-mentioned, they are mostly in the pay of the Turkish government, and are either connected with the quarantine establishments, belong to the troops, or are attached to the court of the Pasha. Relative to these, however, I may quote what Dr. Thompson, who was for some time at Damascus on a medical mission, and who was extremely beloved and esteemed by the natives there, states, viz.,—
“That on one occasion he was requested by the seraskier, or commander of the forces for Arabia, to perform an important operation on a soldier, as the ordinary medical staff were not able or willing to do it. In the course of the operation, the medical staff one and all failed in their aid, and some of them even fainted; and the writer had to rely on his own presence of mind, and unaided, to terminate the operation. Imagine an epidemic in a hospital under such surveillance; the mortality is frightful even under ordinary circumstances. In acute cases, and in serious surgical cases, there is little or no chance for a successful result; and the soldiers and sailors seldom resort to the doctor if they can avoid it. The European renegades in the service are very little better, with a few exceptions. The monks that practise medicine as a profession have a very fair knowledge of simples, and compound their own medicines, and employ a good many recent chemicals and modern ingredients in the European Materia Medica; but their knowledge of acute disease is necessarily limited.”
The natives, in the hour of sickness, have first of all recourse to simple herbal remedies, which have been handed down through many generations, and are chiefly held in estimation by the old people of the villages. When these remedies are found to fail, then, and oftentimes only at the eleventh hour, they bethink them of
the Franks inhabiting some convent in the neighbourhood; and as all Franks are supposed to be physicians by birth, recourse is had to their healing art in preference to Italian or other quack medical professors, who are harsh in their treatment of the sick, unconscionable as to charges, and in any real case of difficulty seldom, if ever, successful. The monks are always ready and willing to avail themselves of any such opportunity of displaying their skill and charity, and it requires no second invitation before one or more of them are at the threshold of the sick man’s house, and a few minutes find them busily employed about the cure, if it be practicable. In many instances, the patient is only suffering from severe constipation, or it may be a severe attack of ague; and in these cases a quick and almost miraculous cure is soon effected. That it should be considered a miracle, or an interposition of Divine Providence, brought about by the prayers and benedictions of the holy friars, is the main object they have in view, hence no opportunity is lost, on the first arrival of the priestly doctors, to impress upon the minds of the relatives and friends in secret the almost certainty of the patient’s demise, unless a special interposition be made by them on his behalf. If this does not ultimately lead to the conversion of the household, it shakes them in their own creed, engenders confidence towards their benefactors, and leaves a grateful impression behind for many gratuitous charities rendered. The least return they can then make, is to comply with the oft-urged request of the monks to send their children to be educated at the convent school.
Luckily for the credit of Great Britain, she sends few charlatans from her colleges; and an English or American quack is a thing heretofore unheard of in Syria, whereas
charlatans of all other nations have been superabundant. An English doctor possesses an unsullied reputation in Syria. He is looked upon in the same light as an English gun, or an English watch—a thing that can only be manufactured or brought to perfection in England. Hence, if the report be spread that an English Hakeem, or even an Englishman of any denomination, be travelling in the neighbourhood, the halt and lame, and blind, and otherwise ailing of all the surrounding villages will congregate near to where his tent may be pitched, and pester him incessantly for remedies, if it be only a little white sugar weighed out by his skilful hands, to be used in cases of ophthalmia. Every sect, and even Mahommedan ladies, came and consulted Dr. Thompson, and received him at their own houses unveiled. The judicious physician is treated in the light of a gifted individual; he is looked upon as having the power of life and death in his hands: in the sick-room he is courted and treated with the greatest deference and respect; and even whilst passing in the streets, the occupants rise to salute him. It is not uncommon for him to find himself impeded in his progress by the prostration of the female members of the family to kiss his garments, even his shoes. This has occurred repeatedly, to my knowledge, in Damascus; and the doctor was also appealed to in private matters as the umpire, and for his advice in domestic and personal affairs.
I may also here relate an incident in my own life in support of the influence which a Hakeem can obtain over the prejudices of Eastern people. During my last visit to Constantinople, whilst visiting at the house of Husseen Pasha, His Excellency, in the course of conversation, hinted to me, that the rumour of my medical
studies in Europe had reached him; and after a little introductory preamble, he begged of me to see his wife, who had been confined to her bed for some days. I can hardly describe my astonishment at such a request coming from such a quarter; however, I expressed my readiness to do all in my humble power to alleviate the sufferings of the invalid. I was accordingly conducted by a eunuch through a perfect maze of dark and mysterious passages (coughing all the way, as is the fashion, to give notice of the approach of a male, for the females to veil themselves) to the bed-chamber of the sick lady, whom I found reclining upon a mattress, laid upon a carpet on the floor. It being announced to her, that the Hakeem Bashi was at hand, an attendant, old Dudu, came forward, and our interview commenced.
After a short conversation, in which she made many anxious inquiries relative to the Frank country and the English ladies, about whom I found she had very absurd notions, we came to the real object of my visit. I asked where the pain lay, and it will cause my readers to smile when I state her reply. She told me that I must cast her nativity according to Eastern customs, and thus discover the seat of pain myself. I told her that the system of medicine which I had learnt in England did not admit of such practices, and went on to shew her the utter fallacy of such doings. She answered me, that her own doctor in Circassia formally adopted this plan, and that, after ascertaining the star under which she was born, appropriate verses from the Koran were written upon three slips of paper: one was put in water, which she afterwards drunk; one was burnt with perfumes to drive evil spirits from the room; and the third was placed upon the affected part.