At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

It was particularly embarrassing when the Amîr asked the question, and I once told His Highness that in Europe we did not speak of diseases as being either hot or cold, that it was often impossible to consider them as either one or the other. His Highness was quite indignant at my denying what apparently seemed to him such a self-evident fact, so much so that he doubted if my interpreter had translated what I had said correctly. After that, when I was asked, I told the interpreter to class the disease as hot or cold, according to the custom of the country.

Treatment of Disease by the People.

In the distant villages, where there is no hakim, and the priest’s amulet has failed to cure, the people either go untreated or treat themselves. A popular mode of treatment for diseases of bones and joints, and also for almost any pain in the chest, abdomen, or back, is the employment of the “actual cautery.” A piece of live charcoal is placed against the skin until a deep burn is produced; this is done in two or three places, the scars, of course, remaining till the end of the patient’s life.

Another custom, mostly for diseases accompanied by fever, is to kill a sheep, skin it rapidly, and at once wrap the patient in the hot skin. I do not know that it does any harm. The Amîr himself, when suffering from gout, and when the hakims had failed to relieve him, employed this essentially Afghan mode of treatment for his leg and foot. Afterwards he sent for me.

For wounds, ulcers, or abscesses the villagers bind on either a piece of fresh sheepskin, which they leave on till it stinks, or a piece of an old water bag (mussack), which they soften afresh by soaking. Sometimes they plaster on mud or clay. In the case of ulcers, the fact that they never heal under these circumstances does not seem to strike the Afghans, and they continue in the old custom. If the discharge oozes from under the clay they plaster on a little more. Cover a sore, get it out of sight, is the golden rule of hakims, dressers, and people. The condition of the ulcer when the clay is removed is indescribable. In some cases the only possible treatment is the removal of the limb.

The Feringhi as a Healer.

I noticed that the richer and more educated Afghans did not seem so ready to avail themselves of European medical aid as the poorer people, and it struck me there were two reasons for this. First, that the hakims took the trouble to explain to the richer people, from whom they expected to receive fees, that Europeans use deadly poisons in their medicines, which are just as likely to kill as to cure. A certain amount of weight attaches to this by the often unfortunate results of medical treatment by the Hindustani hospital assistants. The other reason seems to be due, not to the hakims, but to the influence of the priests. The more religious of the Afghans apparently look upon a European as one who, by the help of the Powers of Evil, has in this world the gifts of knowledge, skill, and wealth, but who in the next life must inevitably be consigned to eternal torment. Doubtless with his deadly poisons he can cure diseases if he wish, but it is not wise, and, indeed, is scarcely lawful, for a sick man to make use of him.

They feel it will offend God less if, before they traffic with the evil one by employing a Feringhi doctor, they use all lawful and right means to become well, such as trying the efficacy of prayer, or the wearing of amulets and charms: should these fail, by placing themselves under the care of their hereditary physicians, the hakims, who attended their fathers and their fathers’ fathers. They can always call in the Feringhi as a last resource.

The peasants and the hillmen, the soldiers and the poorer townsfolk—in fact, all those who are but occasionally under the influence of the priests, and from whom the hakims can expect a small, if any fee—these are ready enough to trust themselves, when sick, to European medical skill. They take advantage of that which seems to them good, as an animal might, without entering upon the deeper question whether it is religiously right or wrong—in fact, they even look upon a doctor as one to be classed with Dewanas or madmen, and prophets, who are all more or less sacred.