Arab Medicine And Surgery - A Study Of The Healing Art In Algeria

PREFACE IT is with the greatest diffidence that I lay this little work before students of the History of Surgery, Medicine, and Pharmacology. A layman-totally untrained in medical science-I suddenly found myself in 1913 admitted to some of the secrets of the reticent Rerber and Arab doctors of the Aures Massif, Algeria. It is my misfortune that I lacked the knowledge necessary to enable me to do justice to the opportunities of studying their art which I have enjoyed. But for the kindly interest taken in my work by the late Sir William Osler I should not have ventured to publish these notes at all. In the circumstances all that I can attempt in the following pages is to describe as I have seen it the life and work of the practitioners of the remote valleys of the Aures Mountains and, when dealing mith their operations and methods of treatment, to act as the mouthpiece of the native doctors themselves. I wish to offer my heartiest thanks to the authorities at the Herbarium at Kew and at the Botanical Gardens, Oxford to Professor E. B. Poulton and Mr. E. W. Holmes, for the care mith which they have determined for me the materia medica I have collected. To the Council of the Royal Society of Medi- cine and of the Royal Anthropological Institute for allowing me to reproduce, in a form amplified as a result of later inquiries in the field, material which I have already dealt with in their Proceedings and Journal the Council of the former Society having kindly permitted me to use again the photograph of a splint Pl. VI, 6 which appeared in the Poceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1920, vol. xiii and to Professor J. A. Gunn and Dr. Charles Singer for much advice and kindly criticism. To Mr. Henry Balfour, Curator of the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, I am indebted not merely for permission to publish many illustrations of instruments now in that Museum, but also for his never-failing encouragement, without which I should probably never have commenced the, to me, fascinating study of Shawiya ethnography at all. Finally, to the French Government, and to all its officers and officials with whom I have come into contact in Algeria, I desire to express my deep sense of gratitude for all the facilities, kindness, and hospitality which my wife and I have ever received at their hands. M. W. HILJON-SIMPSON. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION . I PART I. THE GENEKAL PRACTIIJONEK OF THE AURES . 7 PART 11. SURGERY. . 28 Styptics, 28. Asepsis, 28. Anaesthetics, 29. Trepanning, 30. Reinoval of bone from limbs, 39. Substitution of bone in limbs, 41. Fractures in limbs, 42. Fractures of collar-bone and ribs, 46. Fracture of jaw, 47. Dislocation and nuscular injuries, 48. Hernia, so. Cautery, 51. Surgery of the eye, 52. Dropsy, 56. Obstetric surgery, 58. Lithotomy, 59. Circumcision, 60. Cupping, 62. Snake and scorpion bites, 63. Dentistry, 63. Sutures, 64. ings, 65. Skin-grafting, 64. Bullet wounds, 64. Dress- PART 111. MEDICINE . . 68 Purges and laxatives, 68. Colic and indigestion, 69. Flatulence, 70. Worms, 70. Affections of liver and spleen, 70. Jaundice, 71. Diarrhoea, 73. Cholera, 74. Fever, 74. Colds, 74. Coughs and chest affections, 75. Bronchitis, 76. Vhoop- ing-cough, 77. Headache, 77. Earache, 77. Rheumatism, 78. Syphilis, 79. Gonorrhoea, 82. Swollen testicles, 83. Haemorrhoids, 83. Skin diseases, 84. Melanodernia, 85. Baldness, 86. Boils, 86. Abscesses, 87. Affections of the mouth, 87. Dropsy, 87. Small-pox, 88. Measles, 88. Obstetric medicine, 89. Excessive menstruation, go. Aphrodisiacs, go. Rabies, 91. Inflammation of a vein, 91. Sunstroke, 92. Mumps, 92. Running sores, 92. Burns and scalds,