Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 4 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 4 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773
Bruce, James
Egypt -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- History; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River
would exhibit a figure very different from the common one; for I am
convinced by experiment, that a web of the finest muslin, wrapt round
the body at Sennaar, will occasion at mid-day a greater sensation of
heat in the body than the rise of 5° in the thermometer of Fahrenheit.
At Sennaar, from 70° to 78° in Fahrenheit's thermometer is cool;
from 79° to 92° temperate; at 92° begins warm. Although the degree
of the thermometer marks a greater heat than is felt by the body of
us strangers, it seems to me that the sensations of the natives bear
still a less proportion to that degree than ours. On the 2d of August,
while I was lying perfectly enervated on a carpet, in a room deluged
with water, at twelve o'clock, the thermometer at 116°, I saw several
black labourers pulling down a house, working with great vigour,
without any symptoms of being at all incommoded.
The diseases of Sennaar are the dysentery, or bloody flux, fatal in
proportion as it begins with the first of the rains, or the end of
them, and return of the fair weather. Intermitting fevers accompany
this complaint very frequently, which often ends in them. Bark is
a sovereign remedy in this country, and seems to be by so much
the surer, that it purges on taking the first doze, and this it
does almost without exception. Epilepsies and schirrous livers are
likewise very frequent, owing, as is supposed, to their defeating or
diminishing perspiration, or stopping the pores by constant unction,
as also by the quantity of water they deluge themselves with at the
time they are hottest. The influence of the moon in epilepsies,
and the certainty with which the third day after the conjunction
brings back the paroxysm in regular intermitting fevers, is what
naturally surprises people not deeper read than I am in the study of
medicine. Those who live much in camps, or in the parts of Atbara far
from rivers, have certainly, more or less, the gravel, occasioned,
probably, by the use of well-water; for at Sennaar, where they drink
of the river, I never saw but one instance of it, that of the Sid el
Coom; as for Shekh Ibrahim, whom I shall speak of afterwards, he had
passed a great part of his life at Kordofan. The venereal disease is
frequent here, but never inveterate, insomuch that it does not prevent
the marriage of either sex. Sweating and abstinence never fail to cure
it, although, where it had continued for a time, I have known mercury
fail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account