The Circassians and some of the tribes of Caucasus are said to have
been acquainted with the uses of inoculation in olden days. They were
chiefly slave-dealers, and they had to take great care of their young
girl-captives, more especially as regarded any sort of disfigurement
which would destroy their good looks, and consequently their value.
Of the early history of the sickness little is known, but it is a
well-established fact that the symptoms were first clearly diagnosed
by the ancient Arab physician, Rhazes, whose name is well known to
Orientalists and students of medical history. His book is entitled
_Kitab-ul-Jederee Vel-Hassabeh_, the translation of which is _Treatise
of Smallpox and Measles_. This work was translated into English from a
Latin version by T. Stark early in the eighteenth century.
* * * * *
The business-like European manner of investing money is not known
among our people. Those who do not know what to do with their spare
money, and who fear it may be stolen, or kindly taken charge of by
the officials of the paternal Sultan, hide their cash by burying it
in corners of their houses or fields. But we did not hide the five
hundred pounds belonging to my mother. Someone suggested to us that we
should buy mohair goats, of which the hair, cut every spring, would
yield us an annual income. This was a little after the Russo-Turkish
War, and in the consequent depression of trade even the silky-haired,
valuable Angora goat was to be cheaply bought We purchased three
hundred of these animals. But misfortunes never come alone. In a
year's time a disease broke out among the greater part of the animals
in our province, and almost all our goats died. My mother, in her
simple faith, attributed this to kismet, and consoled herself and us
accordingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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