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2 twenty years of age. All dishes, before they are placed on
3 the table of the prince, must be tasted by Hoshbegi, in the
4 kitchen ; he puts them afterwards in a locked basket, of which
5 he and the emir only have the keys.
6 The emir having taken the above-mentioned bilious fever,
7 I was introduced to him by Hoshbegi. I administered the
8 usual emetic, which had a good effect, and Hoshbegi requested
9 the recipe of it. He asked me also for some tartar-emetic,
10 quinine (with which last he was acquainted through Dr.
11 Gerard), and phosphorus, the latter for his recreation.
12 Among the many patients I had to attend during my stay at
13 Bokhara, was one affected with asthma, whom I was ordered
14 by the emir to cure, as he was a relation of his own, and the
15 recovery of whom produced some sensation. This man was
16 troubled upwards of twenty years with a spasmodic and periodic
17 asthma; he was already very weak and exhausted, yet I suc-
18 ceeded in curing him.
19 Hoshbegi was very much pleased with my information, and
20 was anxious for instruction, so we passed many hours in conver-
21 sation. A short time after the death of the aforesaid student,
22 he asked me how the stone is produced in man ; this I ex-
23 plained to him clearly. At this time, the Emirakhoor (chief
24 groom) gave me two stones from a horse, each the size of a
25 goose egg, which had been ejected, along with the excrement,
26 in the interval of a year, and which probably had been formed
27 in the stomach or intestines. I remember relating an anecdote to
28 him on that occasion, which I venture to introduce here, it
29 having very much pleased Hoshbegi. A mother on the Lebanon,
30 whose boy I operated on, told me she well knew the cause of the
31 formation of the stone in the body of her son George. I
32 begged her to tell me her opinion, and she went on saying : u My
33 husband, who is a butcher, is addicted to drink ; he departed
34 for the fair twelve years ago, when I was nursing George. His
35 intention was to buy some oxen, and he took a large sum of
36 money with him, of which he was robbed while in a state of
37 intoxication. When I heard this, continued the woman, it made
38 VOL. i.
39 n