If not exactly a cure of their Mahometan souls, they
acknowledged that I held the key to their bowels, which were
entirely dependent upon my will, when the crowd of applicants
daily thronged my medicine chest, and I dispensed jalap, calomel,
opium, and tartar emetic. Upon one occasion a woman brought me a
child of about fifteen months old, with a broken thigh; she had
fallen asleep upon her camel, and had allowed the child to fall
from her arms. I set the thigh, and secured it with gum bandages,
as the mimosas afforded the requisite material. About twenty
yards of old linen in bandages three inches broad, soaked in
thick gum-water, will form the best of splints when it becomes
dry and hard, which in that climate it will do in about an hour.
There was one complaint that I was obliged to leave entirely in
the hands of the Arabs, this was called "frendeet;" it was almost
the certain effect of drinking the water that in the rainy season
is accumulated in pools upon the surface of the rich table lands,
especially between the Atbara and Katariff; the latter is a
market-town about sixty miles from Wat el Negur, on the west bank
of the river. Frendeet commences with a swelling of one of the
limbs, generally accompanied with intense pain; this is caused by
a worm of several feet in length, but no thicker than
pack-thread.
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