This is his complete pharmacopoeia: his
medicine chest, combining purgatives, blisters, sudorifics,
styptics, narcotics, emetics, and all that the most profound M.D.
could prescribe. With this "multum in parvo" stock-in-trade the
Faky receives his patients. No. 1 arrives, a barren woman who
requests some medicine that will promote the blessing of
childbirth. No. 2, a man who was strong in his youth, but from
excessive dissipation has become useless. No. 3, a man deformed
from his birth, who wishes to become straight as other men. No.
4, a blind child. No. 5, a dying old woman, carried on a litter;
and sundry other impossible cases, with others of a more simple
character.
The Faky produces his book, the holy Koran, and with a pen formed
of a reed he proceeds to write a prescription; not to be made up
by an apothecary, as such dangerous people do not exist, but the
prescription itself is to be SWALLOWED! Upon a smooth board, like
a slate, he rubs sufficient lime to produce a perfectly white
surface; upon this he writes in large characters, with thick
glutinous ink, a verse or verses from the Koran that he considers
applicable to the case; this completed, he washes off the holy
quotation, and converts it into a potation by the addition of a
little water; this is swallowed in perfect faith by the patient,
who in return pays a fee according to the demand of the Faky.
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