Discourse on the smallpox and measles ... : To which is annexed, A treatise on the same diseases by the celebrated Arabian physician, Arubeker Rhazes. The whole translated into English, under the author's inspection / by Thomas Stack.

  • Richard Mead
Date:
1748
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discourse on the smallpox and measles ... : To which is annexed, A treatise on the same diseases by the celebrated Arabian physician, Arubeker Rhazes. The whole translated into English, under the author's inspection / by Thomas Stack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in the reign of Mohammed pradtifed about the year Dcxxu-f. Whence the learned Dr. Freind conjectured, that pcfiibly the fmall pox took its rife in Egypt §. But the origin of the difeafe is carried farther back than the time of this Aaron, by Dr. John James Reifke, who fays that he read the following words in an old Arabic manufcript of the public library at Leyden: This year in fine the fmall pox and meafies made their firft appear¬ ance in Arabia *. By this year he means that of the birth of Mohammed, which was the year of Chrift dlxxii. Now upon mature confideration of the whole affair, I am inclined to think that there are certain difeafes, which are origi¬ nally engendered and propagated in certain countries, as in their native foil. Thefe by Hippocrates are called difeafes of the coun¬ try || •, and fome of them, fprung up in va¬ rious parts of Europe and AJia9 from pecu¬ liar defeats in the air, foil, and waters, he has mod accurately defcribed**: but the more modern Greeks call them endemic dif- tafes . Thefe, in my opinion, always ex¬ ited in their refpe&ive native places, as f V. Abulpharajii hi ft. Dynaft, p. gg. § Oper. p. 330. * Hoc demum anno comparnerunt pri- mum in terris Arabum variolae et morbilii. Di/p, inaug. Lug. Bat. 1746. || Nacrypotia. b ** Lib. l)e a'ere, aquis, et loots. ^1 Vid. Galen. Com. i. in Bpidem. Hip.
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