Masterman,
E. "Hygiene and Disease in
Public Domain.
Digitally prepared by Ted Hildebrandt (2004)
HYGIENE AND DISEASE IN
AND IN BIBLICAL
TIMES. (Part III)
By
DR. E. W. G. MASTERMAN.
(Continued
from Q.S., 1918, p. 71.)
CHAPTER
IV.--The Ideas among the Natives of
Causes and Cure of
Disease.
THE
ideas of the modern fellah or bedawi regarding the
causes
and cure of disease are derived from a number of
traditions that
have survived from various successive ages. First of
all, there is
a stratum of folklore belief which is universally
respected to-day,
but which, from its wide distribution and quaint
unreasoning nature,
is evidently extremely primitive; then there are
beliefs connected
in some degree with the orthodox religions,
especially with the
Kur’an and the official interpreters of these
Scriptures; a later
stratum, which accounts for disease on rational
grounds, belongs to
mediaeval medical lore; while in some parts of the
land modern
ideas of sanitation and of medical and surgical
treatment are slowly
coming to be recognized.
Belonging, doubtless, to really
primitive beliefs, we have the
cult of the Evil
eye, an influence which is to-day considered
by the majority in the land as the most potent of
all causes of
disease and death. “The eye fell on him and he
died,” is the way
a mother will narrate the death of her firstborn.
In the Orient the
most dreaded eye is a blue one; the owner of such
may, quite
innocently, bring misfortune, disease, or death at
any time. A look
or a word of admiration bestowed, however
casually, may prove
disastrous unless the owner of the eye checks the
influence by
muttering the name of God. Children and horses are
particularly
liable to fall under this curse. It is to avoid the
glance of the
evil eye that many a child is kept unwashed, or
dressed in the
shabbiest clothes--often only in garments given by
or begged from
112
HYGIENE AND DISEASE IN
strangers. For fear of this or of a very similar
malignant influence
not defined, children will be called by displeasing
names, such as
"wolf," "jackal," “bear,” or
"leopard," or given such names as
“forsaken.” In other cases a child will be allowed to remain
un-
named, being addressed as either “boy” or “girl,” as
the case may
be. Sometimes the mother pretends to sell the
child to another
woman, who gives her, perhaps, a sum equivalent to a
farthing for
it. To guard against the evil eye, amulets are
worn by most
children and by horses. In the latter case,
bright blue beads are
considered sufficient; but around a child's neck
there is frequently a
necklace of assorted charms--in some cases a
veritable museum.
Thus,
a large lump of alum is added to the collection because it is
a substance irritating to "the eye";
bright coins or beads are
employed because they attract “the eye” away from
the child's
face; the bone of an owl because this bird's keen
sight at night
invests its bone with peculiar virtue as a
guardian; or we find such
objects as a hedgehog's hoof, the vertebra of a
wolf or dog, or a
small dog's tail. Commonly, too, an amulet called a hajab, a small
metal or leather case containing an extract from the Kur'an, or a
cabbalistic charm, written by a kateb, is worn; in the
district it also often contains a piece of the
black "stink stone" of
Nebi Musa. The Oriental
Jews also frequently add small metal
plates with some Hebrew words, and metal, or other
material,
moulded into the form of a hand--the
"hand of might." Besides
the special amulets, the fellahin adorn a child for
whose safety they
specially fear with a cap (tukeyeh) of some bright colour--red,
yellow, or green-while the Oriental Jews further
ornament such
a cap with blue beads, often arranged in a Hebrew
device. All
these things may be considered as part of the
prophylaxis against
disease.
When, on account of a child wasting
away, it is suspected that
the "eye has fallen on him," various
magical means are resorted
to in order to ascertain who is the guilty owner
and to destroy his
power. Such a ceremony is called a rakweh. A "wise
woman "
--the modern survival of the "witch"--is called in;
she takes1 a
little barley, salt, alum, meriamiyeh (an aromatic plant),
and olive
leaves, and, placing them together in an earthenware
dish over a
fire, she allows the fumes to come over the sick
patient, while she
1 This is the account of
one ceremonial--the details vary in different
localities and religions.
114 HYGIENE
AND DISEASE IN
mutters: "O God! prayer
in the name of the Prophet, from every
blue eye and from all divided teeth.1 The
Prophet has charmed his
female camel and followed his companions. O God! prayer in the
name of our Lord Muhammad. Let there be fire in the
eye of the
neighbour; let there be a khisht2 in the eye of the
maiden; let there
be a sword in the eye of the guest; and let there
be a shurshura3 in
the eye of the woman and in the eyes of all that
saw you and made
no prayer to the Prophet." The lump of alum
by this time has
melted in the heat, and the woman exclaims that the
crackling
sound that it makes means the destruction of the
offending eye;
while she professes to recognize in its shape, as it
hardens, the
features of the individual who has bewitched the
child. The next
step is to destroy his or her influence. To do this
it is necessary
to secure part of his clothes or other personal
property, and to burn
it before the afflicted child. Pieces of the straw
mat from the
room--preferably taken from the four corners--or a
fragment of
the palm leaf carried on Palm Sunday, may also be
burnt as curative
fumigators. For this purpose the Oriental
Christians cherish these
leaves from one Palm Sunday to another.
A child wasting away is sometimes
declared to be a changeling,
and a "wise woman" recommends various
remedies to right matters
for example, letting the child down a well, or
burying it up to its
neck in a dungheap.
Another common cause of disease,
according to native medical
lore, is fright. A sleeping person must be very
gently and slowly
aroused, lest the start of a sudden awakening
should cause disease.
For
one who has undergone a severe shock of any kind, the popular
remedy is to make him drink for seven days--a mouthful
at sunrise
and sunset--from the tasat er-ra'beh (lit. "cup
of fear"). This cup
must be kept all night in the rays of the moon; no
sunlight must
fall upon the liquid. The ritual must commence with
the appearance
of the new moon: The cup is properly made from the
vault of the
skull of a murdered man, and is lined with silver or
copper, and
such cups are brought to the villages by the
pilgrims from
But,
failing that, a copper cup may be used. Among some of the
villagers, an elaborate ceremony is substituted,
in which the patient
1 Divided teeth are a secondary characteristic of the bearer of the
evil eye.
2 Khisht, a long splinter of wood
used by the fellahin to close a sack when
they have nothing wherewith to sew it up.
3 A small sickle used for
cutting grass.
HYGIENE
AND DISEASE IN
is steamed in a vapour
arising from a cooked fowl stuffed with some
forty different herbs.
Of the peculiar ideas regarding the
causes of special diseases, a
few selected examples may be given here. Leprosy is
considered
to be due to contact with the gecko, which, in
consequence, is
known as Abu baras ("the father of leprosy"). Sore heads
(ring-
worm, etc.) are ascribed to
the excrement of bats falling upon them
in the dark. Enlarged spleen is often due to
swallowing fragments
of the finger nails, and this disease--known as tahal--is in turn
con-
sidered a cause of hernia.
Warts are said to be the result of trying
to count the stars. Haemorrhoids,
or “piles,” called bowaser,
are
considered as the source of troubles all over the
body; for example,
a Druze woman under the writer's care asked
whether her nasal
polypus was not due to reh bowaser (lit. "the
breath of piles").
Rheumatism
is called reh
(lit. “wind”) in the joints. Tetanus,
epilepsy, and all forms of lunacy are ascribed to
possession by evil
spirits. A person must never step across a child
lying on the floor,
or it will cease to grow; if this has been done by
accident, the
individual must carefully retrace his steps.
Of the extraordinary number of remedies recommended for
various diseases, only a few specimens,
carefully verified, can be
given here. Of the nature of charms we have : the hyoid bone, or
canine tooth of a wolf, worn as a sure protection
against whooping-
cough; a small metal frog, a charm against the
"evil eye" in
general, is worn particularly against ranula, a cystic swelling be-
neath the tongue; the fat
from the neck of an ostrich is a potent
application in rheumatism; a particular rounded red
stone, called
bazleh, is constantly worn
suspended from the headdress over the
eyebrow of a chronically reddened eye--when the
eye gets better,
the stone is believed by some to turn white. Red
appears to have
peculiar healing virtues, because the wearing of
a red coral necklace
is a remedy against fever, and this, too, is said
to become white when
it has worked its cure. A calcined
calf's foot, powdered and applied
in a piece of red material, is a good .local
remedy for prolapsus ani.
The
urine of a fasting boy, and fasting saliva--a well known remedy
--are
recommended as cures of ophthalmia. Ear wax is used
for
ringworm. The hairs taken from the forehead,
between the eyes, of
a perfectly black donkey, if burnt, are a remedy
for eye and other
diseases. The hoof of a mule, charred, powdered
and mixed with
fat is useful in baldness, as is also the gall of an
old he-goat. For
116 HYGIENE
AND DISEASE IN
"shock"--due to a fall or other accident--a remedy much
believed
in is quickly to kill and skin a sheep and wrap
the patient in the
smoking hot skin, while the meat is distributed
to the poor; for
enlarged spleen, goat's dung, dried and dissolved
in vinegar, is
applied locally; a fever patient may be
strengthened if fed on
camel's milk which has been stirred with the
camel's tail until the
milk is dark in colour.
For barrenness there are, naturally, many
remedies, among which may be mentioned the claws
of a hoopoe
burnt and dissolved in syrup, or a diet of donkey's
brains. The
eye of an owl enclosed in a piece of the skin of a
wolf will drive
off poisonous insects, the penis of a fallow deer
is a protection against
serpents, and boiled Egyptian vulture is thought
(by the bedawin
of Sinai) to be a remedy for snake-bite. Ointment
of crabs is, in
some districts, a favourite
remedy for lumbago. For this disease
it is also considered good to pull up a mandrake
from the roots (a
feat requiring considerable exertion); when the last
fibres give way,
the root emits a shriek, but the man who does this
will be childless,
and so it is a remedy only to be recommended to the
old. To cure
a "stye" in
the eye, some dough must, be begged from three
Fatmehs or three Miriams,
and the eye poulticed with it. For
fever, a piece of bread and some bits of candle are
taken to the
centre of cross roads, a rough enclosure of stones is
built over the
bread, and the candles are lighted; when a dog comes
and knocks
over the construction the fever will be cured.
Should a woman
have a miscarriage or premature delivery, the dead
child must be
buried below the threshold of the door to prevent the
recurrence
of such a misfortune.1
Belonging to another class are the
"charms" made for particular
diseases, written by the sheikhs in a decoction
of saffron or in ink.
The
majority of these consist of little more than sentences of the
Kur’an, especially the fathah
(opening sentences), repeated over and
over again, the spaces between the sentences being
filled up with
scrawled Arabic letters with no meaning. In some
cases the patient
is directed either to wear the charm in the cap
(e.g., in a case of
headache), or to wash off the ink and drink the
liquid, to dissolve
the paper and swallow it, or, in yet other
instances, to burn the
paper and inhale the smoke. Occasionally, the
directions are to
dissolve one half and drink it, and to fumigate
with the other half.
1 An account of many more
such remedies will be found in the Q.S.,
1906,
pp.
97-102.
HYGIENE
AND DISEASE IN
One
patient was directed to cut his "charm" into strips to put
daily one strip into a cup and leave it outside the
house that the
"dews" of night might fall upon it; he was to drink the
water so
collected, using a new strip every night for a
week, after which he
would be cured of his cough. Other charms consist of
strings
knotted in a particular way, a verse of the Kur’an being recited as
each knot is tied.
The sheikhs are very specially consulted for the
exorcism of
spirits, for which they profess to have great
gifts; they pretend,
before the assembled patient's friends, to concentrate
the demoniacal
power gradually into one limb, say a leg, and then
gradually make
it leave by a particular toe. There is no question
that some
hysterical cases are "cured" by psychical
influence. There is
an elaborate ritual for the exorcism of demons
called indulca,
which
is well known among the Spanish Jews of Jerusalem.
It is per-
formed by a "witch."
For all diseases the weltys and other sacred shrines
are visited.
Vows
and sacrifices are made for the recovery of the sick. The
plants from such shrines are considered valuable for
fumigation of
the sick, and the dry earth from the neighbourhood is curative of
many diseases (cf. Numb. v, 17). Many springs and
wells are
credited with healing properties. Some, like 'Ain es-Sultan (Elisha's
fountain) at
for the cure of special diseases. Naturally, the
hot springs at
Tiberias and at el-Hammeh
are much resorted to: that there is a
supernatural influence believed to
be present is shown by the fact
that the name of God must not, so it is taught, be
uttered while
bathing.
Some shrines, particularly those devoted to el-Khuder, are
credited with special virtues for the cure of
insanity. Here, too,
there is plenty of evidence that "cures" of
certain functional
nervous affections do actually take place.
To a different class of treatment belong the
bleedings, cauterizings,
and issues which are universally used; they are, no
doubt, survivals
of the orthodox treatment of a past age. Bleeding
is commonly
done by barbers for fever, and some of the Syrians
are accustomed
to be bled every spring--a habit to the omission
of which in some
special year the writer has frequently heard
many ills ascribed.
The
cautery is a constant and universal remedy. The usual
spots
chosen are the centre of the cranial vault for
headache, between the
118 HYGIENE
AND DISEASE IN
breasts for cough, over the epigastrium
for dyspepsia and enlarged
spleen, over the throat for diphtheria, and so on. For
other pains,
such as lumbago, a number of small cauterizations,
in sometimes
quite an elaborate pattern, are made; or the part is
tattooed. Issues,
kept open for years by inserting a pea, are
exceedingly common on
the arm for chronic trachoma; and other issues are
made in the
neighbourhood of painful joints.
With regard to vegetable remedies, a number of
indigenous
herbs are credited with curative virtues, but are of
quite secondary
importance to amulets and the magic of the sheikhs.
In the towns
a number of old prescriptions are used, by which
such substances
as pepper, ginger, saffron, honey, and garlic are
mingled in varying
proportions. More effective than these prescriptions
is the method
of treatment known as el-‘ushbeh, which is used for Syphilis.
The
patient is isolated for forty days in a tent or
room, fed on un-
leavened bread (without salt), honey and raisins,
and is made to
drink great quantities of a decoction of sarsparilla, with which he
is also steamed. The method is also tried for
other diseases which
have failed to yield to treatment.
In connection with childbirth there are many
customs. The
most noticeable is that firmly and universally held
in belief by Oriental
Jews
of the danger threatening mother and child from the malignant
influence of Lilith, a
female demon about whom there are in-
numerable tales. To protect against her
influences, mother and
child must not for a moment be left alone, but be
watched night
and day, preferably, it would seem, by a noisy
crowd of relations
and friends; copies of an amulet printed in Hebrew
are hung on
the bed and about the room; a bunch of garlic, one
of rue, a Pass-
over cake shaped like a hand, and some bright blue
beads are also
commonly hung on the bed. Among the fellahin the
midwife is
usually responsible for the child the first
forty days of its life.
When
she cuts the navel cord the infant receives its name and,
with boys, in many cases the name of his future
bride (the "daughter
of So-and-so") is also mentioned, such a
betrothal being binding.
Hence
the proverb "Your navel was not cut in my name" means
"I
am not bound to do this or that thing." As soon as the navel
is cut the midwife rubs the child all over with
salt, water, and oil,
and tightly swathes it in clothes for seven days;
at the end of that
time she removes the dirty clothes, washes the child
and anoints it,
and then wraps it up again for seven days--and so
on till the
HYGIENE
AND DISEASE IN
fortieth day (cf. Ezek. xvi, 4). Among the bedawin of Sinai a
male child is often made to swallow the ashes of a
scorpion mixed
with milk, or the finely-chopped feather of the long
eared owl; the
former is considered to be a protection against
scorpion bites; the
latter brings luck. Both must be taken before the
mother's milk
is first tasted.
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