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[ In the text: "Al-Kisrat al-yábisah 'alà 'l-Rík fa-innahá tukhlik jamí'a má 'alà fum al-mádah min al-balgham," of which I cannot make anything but: a slice of dry bread (kisrah = piece of bread) on the spittle (i.e. to break the fast), for it absorbs (lit. uses up, fourth form of "khalik" = to be worn out) all that there may be of phlegm on the mouth of the stomach. Can it be that the dish "Khushk-nán" (Pers. = dry-bread) is meant, of which the village clown in one of Spitta Bey's tales, when he was treated to it by Harun al-Rashid thought it must be the "Hammám," because he had heard his grandmother say, that the Hammám (bath) is the most delightful thing in the world?ST]
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[ The stomach has two mouths, sophagic above (which is here alluded to) and pyloric below.]
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[ Arab. "'Irk al-Unsá" = chordæ testiculorum, in Engl. simply the cord.]
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[ The "'Ajúz" is a woman who ceases to have her monthly period: the idea is engrained in the Eastern mind and I cannot but believe in it seeing the old-young faces of men who have "married their grandmothers" for money or folly, and what not.]
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[ Arab. "Al-'Akík," vol. iii. 179: it is a tradition of the Prophet that the best of bezels for a signet-ring is the carnelian, and such are still the theory and practice of the Moslem East.]