for a bath; and he used to say, 'If intermittent fever seizes any of you, then sprinkle him with water for three nights at early dawn.' He also said, 'Fever comes from the heat of hell, but it is cooled with water.' The Ulemas remark that the use of this remedy was peculiar to the people of the Hejaz; because most of their intermittent fevers were the effect of the heat of the sun; and the fever lasted only a day. He ordered the treatment with cold water, by letting the patient go into it and drink it.

When that prince happened to suffer from headache, he used to apply collyrium to his blessed head, saying, ' Verily collyrium is good for headache, by the permission of God.' When any one complained of headache to that Excellency, he would say, 'Apply collyrium to thy head.' The Ulemas affirm that this remedy suits the kind of headache which does not arise from matter, but is caused by the heat of the sun; and most of their headaches and fevers were of the latter description.

In the medical treatment of eye-ache he recommended quiet and rest: and when Ali suffered from pain in his eyes, he forbade him to eat fresh dates; and as often as one of 'the mothers of the believers' ¹ suffered from pain in her eyes, he did not approach her till she was well again.

The swollen throat of infants, in which blood appeared from their throat, he cured with the Indian Kostus, and forbade the practice of midwives, who tried to cure it by pressing the children's throat to make them bleed. On one occasion, when that Excellency went to Aisha's room, he saw there a boy bleeding from his nostrils, because they had been pressing his throat in order to cure him of the swollen throat. He asked, 'What is this?' They replied, 'On account of his swollen throat, or his pain in the head.' His Excellency answered, 'Woe unto you; do not kill your children. Every woman whose child suffers from a swollen throat or from pain in the head is to dissolve the Indian Kostus in water, and drop it into the child's nose.' They did as that prince had bidden them, and the child recovered.

The stomach-ache arising from the superabundance of matter, that Excellency cured by aperient medicines. It is

proved that once some one came to him, saying, 'O Apostle of God, what dost thou recommend for my brother's stomach ache?' His Excellency replied, 'Let him drink honey sherbet.' The person did so two or three times, but after each time came back, saying that it had produced no effect. On the third or fourth occasion his Excellency said to the person, 'God has spoken true, but thy brother's stomach has acted falsely.' The Ulemas observe that the meaning of 'acting falsely' is here, that on account of the abundance of bad matter, the honey-sherbet did not effect a cure. But that person gave his brother one more draught of honey-sherbet and it produced the desired effect. The Ulemas say that the reason why his Excellency told that person to give his brother another dose, was to show that a dose of medicine must have respect to the nature of the complaint: if the dose is too small for the complaint, it does not operate; and if it is too large, it proves weakening. When the last dose was given to that person's brother, it was equal to the complaint, and caused the cure.

Dropsy was treated by that prince with milk and camel's urine; and a dry constitution with opening medicine. As opening medicine he chose senna: and he used to say, 'If there had been any remedy against death, that remedy would have been senna.'

The pleurisy he treated with red Kostus and olive-oil; and for the itch and louse-disease he ordered the wearing of a silk shirt. For wounds he ordered complete restraint and for heartache Medina dates. The pustules and eruptions of the body he cured with Indian calamus aromaticus; and the sweat of women with the tail of the Arab sheep, by dividing a tail into three parts and causing one of them to be drunk fasting, on three successive mornings.

That prince cupped frequently, and said, 'One of the best things with which cures are effected is cupping: in the night of the ascension the angels told me to recommend to my people the use of cupping.' As a remedy for the poison which he had eaten at Khaibar, he twice had himself cupped between his shoulders, and also on his blessed head. He produced vomiting as a remedy for the stomach; and he used to say, 'Do not force the sick to take food or drink against their