sugar ; an engraving of it may be found in the second volume.
I instantly sent the stone to the minister Hoshbegi, at the fortress of Registan, with the melancholy assurance, that to heal the wound was impossible. In the mean-while, I availed myself of the opportunity to request from the minister some genuine Persian mumiai, this remedy being considered in the Arabic Materia Medica a specific against wounds and fractured bones. I administered one grain to the patient daily. After a few days had elapsed, he began to have an appetite. The minister, who took great interest in the case, sent twice a-day to inquire about the state of the student; and, on hearing of this false sign of recovery, he said that my fears about the restoration of my patient were certainly groundless. "Would to God " replied I, " that my prognostic may turn out false, and that I may be obliged to owe the restoration of the patient to yonr mumiai;" but up to this moment all the operations that I had performed, when the stone was but slightly attached to the bladder, had always failed ; and in such cases, mortification ensues, generally on the fourth day after the operation, which puts an end to the sufferings of the patient. He took his leave, uttering the consoling words, "Trust and rely on God," which I indeed did ; for in sixteen days after, the unfortunate student died of weakness and exhaustion, the bladder being perforated like a sieve, and thus defying surgical and medical art. Feeling the approach of death, he thanked both me and his brother for our attendance, declaring that his early death (he was about twenty years of age) was not the consequence of the inefficiency of the medical art, but the fulfilment of the inscrutable will and decree of God, the Ruler of all beings!
Hoshbegi was in one and the same person, Wuzeer, Receiver of the Customs, Druggist and Hakim to the Emir. Like all the literary men in the East, he not only possessed medical knowledge, but he was likewise the confidential medical of his princely highness. He was also charged
