Medical and topographical observations upon the Mediterranean : and upon Portugal, Spain, and other countries / by G.R.B. Horner.

  • G. R. B. Horner
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and topographical observations upon the Mediterranean : and upon Portugal, Spain, and other countries / by G.R.B. Horner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    disease. Small-pox is destructive from the want of vaccination; it being seldom practised. Dysentery is a common disease, and is treated by the regular physicians after the same plan as in this country; but by the Ara- bians with manna, cassia fistula, rhubarb, and emulsion of almonds. By far the most common disease in every part of the country is ophthalmia; but it is found mostly to the south, near the sea coast, where there is a great accumulation of sand, which when the wind is strong is constantly drifting. About Jaffa, nebula, leucoma, psorophthalmia, and all other affections of the eyes were preva- lent. At Ramla, the Jlramathea of Scripture, which is ten miles from that place, among the first persons 1 saw were three blind men conversing together ; and before the door of the American consul's house, where we stopped, out of twenty persons gathered before it from curiosity or to beg,nine were affected with opacity of the cornea in one or both eyes. Moreover, in riding from this house to the borders of the town, a distance of two hundred yards, thirty-four persons were seen who had suffered a like misfortune, and were par- tially or totally deprived of sight; so that I do not think it impro- bable that one-half of the population have imperfect eyes, either from acute or chronic ophthalmia of various degrees of inten- sity. Nearly all the blind I saw were males, and this may be ascribed to the females living more plainly, keeping much within doors, and when they go out wearing veils, shawls, and handker- chiefs, to protect their faces from the air, and from being seen. In the males the numerous instances of blindness and ophthalmia may be attributed to the great quantity of sand and dust,the exposure of the eyes to an ardent sun, wearing turbans, or caps without brims, which afford no protection; also to the want of proper medical attendance; and to the blowing of the sirocco wind. We encountered this wind on the Carmel mountains as we were going to Jerusalem. It blew directly from the south-east, and was so excessively hot and dry, and so charged with impalpable sand from the deserts of Arabia, that the skin became parched, the lungs oppressed, and the eyes inflamed. The prevalent fevers are intermittents and bilious remittents. These are to be met with throughout the country; but they are by much more numerous in the fertile and level plains of Tripoli. This is readily explained. The river Kadisha, arising from the foot of Lebanon flows through the plain immediately below, and pisses on between the two high hills, upon the western sides of which, and extending towards their base, Tripoli is situated. Having reached the town it is dammed up to supply its fountains, and to be distri- buted in countless streams to the farms and gardens between the hills and the sea shore. The soil being very rich, vegetation ex- tremely luxuriant, the water frequently stagnant from the flatness of the country and damming the streams to divert them from one part to another as may be required for irrigation, the ground is kept