Together with the prescription I receive instructions to drink the soup from a fat chicken in the morning, and to eat its flesh in the evening; to eat hot bread and drink sweet tea, and to do as little work as possible, the powder to be taken daily for a fortnight in a little honey. Whatever else he may not know, it is evident that our doctor knows full well how to humour his patients.
The next case is even more easy of treatment than mine, a "writing" only being required. On a piece of very common paper two or three inches square, the doctor writes something of which the only legible part is the first line: "In the name of God, the Pitying, the Pitiful," followed, we subsequently learn, by repetitions of "Only God is the Healer." For this the patient is to get his wife to make a felt bag sewed with coloured silk, into which the charm is to be put, along with a little salt and a few parings of garlic, after which it is to be worn round his neck for ever.
Sometimes, in wandering through Morocco, one comes across much more curious remedies than these, for the worthy we have just visited is but a commonplace type in this country. A medical friend once met a professional brother in the interior who had a truly original method of proving his skill. By pressing his finger on the side of his nose close to his eye, he could send a jet of liquid right into his interlocutor's face, a proceeding sufficient to satisfy all doubts as to his alleged marvellous powers. On examination it was found that he had a small orifice near the corner of the eye, through which the pressure forced the lachrymal fluid, pure tears, in fact. This is just an instance of the way in which any natural defect or peculiarity is made the most of by these wandering empirics, to impose on their ignorant and credulous victims.
Even such of them as do give any variety of remedies are hardly more to be trusted. Whatever they give, their patients like big doses, and are not content without corresponding visible effects. Epsom salts, which are in great repute, are never given to a man in less quantities than two tablespoonfuls. On one occasion a poor woman came to me suffering from ague, and looking very dejected. I mixed this quantity of salts in a tumblerful of water, with a good dose of quinine, bidding her drink two-thirds of it, and give the remainder to her daughter, who evidently needed it as much as she did. Her share was soon disposed of with hardly more than a grimace, to the infinite enjoyment of a fat, black slave-girl who was standing by, and who knew from personal experience what a tumblerful meant. But to induce the child to take hers was quite another matter. "What! not drink it?" the mother cried, as she held the potion to her lips. "The devil take thee, thou cursed offspring of an abandoned woman! May God burn thy ancestors!" But though the child, accustomed to such mild and motherly invectives, budged not, it had proved altogether too much for the jovial slave, who was by this time convulsed with laughter, and so, I may as well confess, was I. At last the woman's powers of persuasion were exhausted, and she drained the glass herself.
