Volume Two—Chapter Twenty.

A Lecture on Physic.

The skill of the medical officers attached to the Embassy had already produced its effect upon a nation so ignorant of the healing art. Woizoro Indanch Yellum, aunt to His Majesty, arriving from Achun-Kurra on a visit to the court, was made the bearer of compliments on the part of Zenama Work, the Queen-dowager, (i.e. rain of gold) “respecting the pardon of the delinquent slave.” But they were accompanied by a request for medicine, and an admonition that the British guests of her son would do well not to squander all their drugs amongst those who knew not how to appreciate them. “We have seen wondrous things achieved in the time of Sáhela Selássie,” concluded this message from “the golden shower,”—“and the prophecies respecting the red men have indeed fully come to pass.”

The fame, too, of the operation performed with such singular success upon the governor of Mentshar had spread far and wide, and applications for surgical aid became daily more numerous—the patient, in lieu of tendering a fee, invariably insisting, when cured, upon the receipt of some reward. Priests, renowned for the sanctity of their lives, applied in the same breath for a white head-dress, and for a remedy against disorders superinduced “by eating the flesh of partridges.” Even nuns did not disdain assistance, and many a hapless victim to Galla barbarity sought a cure for his irreparable misfortunes.

An exceedingly ill-favoured fellow, striding into the tent, exhibited a node upon the forehead, which he desired might be instantly removed. “The knife, the knife,” he exclaimed; “off with it; my face is spoiled, and has become like that of a cow.” A ruffian who, in a domestic brawl, had contrived to break the arm of his wife, entreated that it might be “mended;” and a wretched youth, whose leg had been fractured twelve months previously, was brought in a state of appalling emaciation, with the splinters protruding horribly. Amputation was proposed as the only resource, but the Master of the Horse was loud in his opposition. “Take my advice,” he remonstrated, “and leave this business alone. If the boy dies, all will declare that the ‘proprietor of the medicines’ killed him—and furthermore, should he survive, it will be said the Almighty cured him.”

In Shoa, the practice of surgery directs the removal of a carious tooth with the hammer, punch, and pincers of the blacksmith. Should venesection be required, a stick placed in the patient’s mouth is tightened by means of a thong passed round his neck, and the distended veins of the forehead are then opened with a razor. Cupping, performed by means of a horn exhausted by suction, is also extremely fashionable; and actual cautery, which is believed to strengthen the muscles of the spear arm, is applied by means either of a pile of lighted cotton, or a stick heated by rapid friction. Fractured bones that have united badly are said to be violently rebroken to admit of their being properly set; and upon the authority of Ayto Habti, the chief physician in ordinary, it may also be stated, that splinters coming away are successfully supplied by portions of the skull of a newly-slain sheep or goat!

But amulets and enchantments are by all classes held far more efficacious than the drugs of the Abyssinian “possessor of remedies,” (Bala medánit, “the master of the medicines,” is the term applied to every physician) which of a truth must be acknowledged to form but a feeble materia medica. Insanity, epilepsy, delirium, hysteria, Saint Vitus’s dance, and in fact all obstinate disorders for which no specific is known, are invariably ascribed to the influence of demons or sorcerers, and the patient is either declared to be possessed of a devil, or to labour under the disastrous consequences of inumbration by the shadow of an enemy. Shreds of blue paper are held to be preservatives against headache, and the seeds of certain herbs are worn as charms against hydrophobia and disasters on a journey; but of these, some must be plucked with the left hand, and others with a finger on which there is a silver ring, and all under a fortunate horoscope, or they can avail nothing.

Small-pox frequently devastates the land, and a free boy of pure blood is then selected from among the number of the infected, and carefully secluded until the pustules are ripe. Many hundred persons assemble, and a layman, chosen for the rectitude of his life, having mixed the lymph with honey, proceeds to inoculate with a razor. Death is often the consequence of the clumsy operation, of the origin of which no tradition exists; neither has any charm been yet discovered to avert the scourge.

Whilst invalids of all classes daily flocked to my camp for medical assistance, applications were not wanting from the palace, in proof of the reputation that we had acquired. One of the princesses royal, who had been lodged with the illustrious guest from Achun-Kurra, in the crimson pavilion presented by the British Government, found herself in need of advice; and on being visited, lay concealed beneath the basket pedestal of a wicker dining-table, whence her sprained foot was thrust forth for inspection. Divers respectable duennas of the royal kitchen, who had been severely scalded by the bursting of a pottage cauldron, were also treated with success when they had been given over by the body physician, at whose merciless hands the sobbing patients had been plastered over with honey and soot. A mutton bone was next extracted from the throat of a page, where it had been firmly wedged for three days. But the cure which elicited the most unqualified and universal amazement was that of a favourite Baalomaal (Officer of the royal household) who, labouring under a fit of apoplexy, which had deprived him of animation, was suddenly revived by venesection, after fumigation with ashkóko goomun (Hyrax’s cabbage) had been tried without the smallest avail, and preparations were already commencing for his interment.

Medicine, in fact, now engrossed the royal attention. Phials and drugs without number were sent to the tent, with a request that they might be so labelled as to admit of the proper dose being administered to patients labouring under complaints, for the removal of which they were respectively adapted. Two or more invalids, who objected to be seen, were certain to arrive at the palace within every four and twenty hours; and no subterfuge that ingenuity could devise was left untried, by which to augment the already ample stock of pills on hand. “You will take care not to give the whole of the remedies to my people, or there will be none left for myself, should I fall sick,” was an almost daily message from the selfish despot. But prescriptions designed for his own use were invariably tried first upon a subject; and the much-dreaded goulard-wash having been once more prepared, directions were given to apply it constantly to a boy who had been found labouring under ophthalmia, in order to ascertain whether he died or survived.

The most particular inquiries were instituted relative to the mode of counteracting the influence of the evil eye, and much disappointment was expressed at the unavoidable intimation that Dr Kirk’s dispensary contained neither “the horn of a serpent,” which is believed to afford an invaluable antidote against witchcraft, no preservative against wounds received in the battle-field, nor any nostrum for “those who go mad from looking at a black dog.”

“We princes also fear the small-pox,” said His Majesty, “and therefore never tarry long in the same place. Nagási, my illustrious ancestor, suffered martyrdom from this scourge. Have you no medicine to drive it from myself?”

Vaccine lymph there was in abundance, but neither Christian, Moslem, nor Pagan had yet consented to make trial of its virtues. Glasses, hermetically sealed, betwixt which the perishable fluid had been deposited, were exhibited, and its use expounded. “No, no!” quoth the king, as he delivered the acquisition to his master of the horse, with a strict injunction to have it carefully stitched in leather—“this is talakh medánit, very potent medicine indeed; and henceforth I must wear it as a talisman against the evil that beset my forefathers.”

“You must now give me the medicine which draws the vicious waters from the leg,” resumed His Majesty, “and which is better than the earth from Mount Lebanon;—the medicine which disarms venomous snakes, and that which turns the grey hairs black;—the medicine to destroy the worm in the ear of the queen, which is ever burrowing deeper;—and, above all, the medicine of the seven colours, which so sharpens the intellects, as to enable him who swallows enough of it, to acquire every sort of knowledge without the slightest trouble. Furthermore, you will be careful to give my people none of this.”