Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/55

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THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.
35

end. Black spots are frequently found on the breast and belly of the dead person. The belly swells, and the stench becomes insufferable in three hours after death, if the person dies in the day, or if the weather is warm.

The next common disease in the low country of Arabia, the intermediate island of Mafuah, and all Abyssinia, (for the diseases are exactly similar in all this tract) is the Tertian fever, which is in nothing different from our Tertian, and is successfully treated here in the same manner as in Europe. As no species of this disease (at least that I have seen) menaces the patient with death, especially in the beginning of the disorder, some time may be allowed for preparation to those who doubt the effect of the bark in the country. But still I apprehend the safest way is to give small doses from the beginning, on the first intermission, or even remission, though this should be somewhat obscure and uncertain. To speak plainly; when the stomach nauseates, the head akes, yawning becomes frequent, and not an excessive pain in the nape of the neck, when a shivering which goes quickly off, a coldness down the spine, a more than ordinary cowardliness and inactivity prevails, (the heat of the climate gives one always enough of these last sensations); I say, when any number of these symptoms unite, have recourse to the powder of bark infilled in water; shut your month against every sort of food; and, at the crisis, your disease will immediately decide its name among the class of fevers.

All fevers end in intermittents; and if these intermittents continue long, and the first evacuations by the bark have not been copious and constant, these fevers generally end

in