Ecbatana

“ They were disappointed, but not hopeless; for Belteshazzar knew well that the decree, relative to the building of the temple, must be in the archives at Ecbatana.
They were followed by a deputation from Syria, and by the Greeks of Ionia; and then, winding up the long train, appeared a band of wild- looking men, dressed in the skins of animals, whose features bespoke them foreigners in Babylon. They wore girdles and shoulderbands of solid, unwrought gold; and of the same precious metal were their bow-cases, axes, lance-points, and the ornaments on their high fur caps. ”

“ Two small squadrons, one of the Companion Cavalry, the other of Macedonian light horse—the Thessalians had gone home from Ecbatana—and a company of infantry, selected for their strength and endurance, formed the van of the pursuing force. Alexander, of course, took the command himself. Charidemus, who was beginning to have a reputation for good luck, a gift scarcely less highly esteemed even by the wise than prudence and courage, received orders to accompany him. No man carried anything beyond his arms and provisions for two days, the king himself being as slenderly equipped as his companions. ”

“ Hamadān also has the grave of the celebrated physician and philosopher Abu Ali ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna (d. 1036) . It is now generally admitted that Hamadān is the Hagmatana (of the inscriptions) , Agbatana or Ecbatana (q.v., of the Greek writers) , the “treasure city” of the Achaemenian kings which was taken and plundered by Alexander the Great, but very few ancient remains have been discovered. ”

“ Mr. Scogan had been accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressed in a black skirt and a red bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandana handkerchief tied round his black wig, he looked--sharp-nosed, brown, and wrinkled--like the Bohemian Hag of Frith's Derby Day. A placard pinned to the curtain of the doorway announced the presence within the tent of "Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana." Seated at a table, Mr. Scogan received his clients in mysterious silence, indicating with a movement of the finger that they were to sit down opposite him and to extend their hands for his inspection. ”

“ Of the outer walls of the royal citadels at Babylon, Diodorus puts those on the one bank of the Euphrates at 30 stades, and those on the other at 60, and of the two inner walls of the latter the first was 40 stades in length and the second 20. [500] The circuit of 22-1/2 miles may, therefore, refer only to the whole extent of the citadel and city of Ecbatana, and it would then come near the statement of Diodorus, who puts the circuit of Ecbatana at 250 stades. ”

“ A good number of historians now admit that they were different persons. Bît-Dayaukku is evidently the district of Ecbatana.
He made a raid extending as far as the confines of the Iranian desert, the barren steppes of Eastern Arabia,* and the district of Nagira belonging to the “powerful” Manda.*
* The Eastern Arabs mentioned here were nomadic, and inhabited the confines of the Great Desert to the south-east of Media, or the steppes of Northern Iran. ”

“ His wound brought him to his senses, and he solemnly conjured the Persian nobles to prevent the empire from passing to the Medes, confessing that he had killed his brother Smerdis, and that therefore the present occupant of the throne must be an impostor. The wounded limb soon mortified, and Cambyses died in Egypt, leaving no issue. Before his death, he asked the name of the village where he lay. He was answered that it was called "Ecbatana." Then he knew that he should die ”

“ A different climate, different regimen, and different habit of body or exercise, may surely so far alter the operation of a drug as to make it have a different effect in Africa from what it has in Europe. Be that as it may, still I say bark is a purgative when it is successful in this fever; but bleeding, at no stage of this distemper, is of any service; and, indeed, if attempted the second day, the lancet is seldom followed by blood. Ipecacuanha both fatigues the patient and heightens the fever, and so conducts the patient more speedily to his end. ”

“ They are carefully collected and thrown in the direction of enemies in order to give them toothache. The Bahima, a pastoral people of Uganda, often suffer from deep-seated abscesses: "their cure for this is to transfer the disease to some other person by obtaining herbs from the medicine-man, rubbing them over the place where the swelling is, and burying them in the road where people continually pass; the first person who steps over these buried herbs contracts the disease, and the original patient recovers." ”

“ The opinion that the plague was brought to Europe from the East, is, as far as I am able to judge, so fully confirmed, that it cannot be any longer doubted; though it is certainly true, that every nation endeavours to trace the origin of infectious disorders to other people. The Turks think that the plague came to them from Egypt ”

“ Such abscesses, occurring in the limbs or scrotum, will discharge in due course, or may be opened; if properly treated surgically they may lead to no further trouble. Should they form in the thorax or abdomen, serious consequences and even death may ensue.
Probably, in certain instances, abscess forms at times independently of the death of the parasite; e.g. in varicose glands, in lymph scrotum, in elephantiasis. The death of the parent filaria is apt to be lost sight of as a possible cause of abscess in the subjects of filarial infection. ”

“ Thus Echtisia is said to contain echinacea, wild indigo, arbor vitae and poke root; Ecthol, to have echinacea and arbor vitae; Echitone, to consist of echinacea, pansy and blue flag. Naturally the manufacturers of such proprietaries make use of all available optimistic reports in promoting their sale, while each manufacturer ascribes special and peculiar virtues to the combination represented in his particular preparation. The Merrell Chemical Company claims that baptisia (wild indigo) is a “destroyer” of devitalizing elements in the blood “a vitalizer of the blood as well” ”

“ Aretæus appears to be the first medical author who alludes to contagion in unequivocal terms. He says of elephantiasis, that it is as infectious as the plague, being communicated by respiration. Cælius Aurelianus, who was probably nearly contemporary with him, mentions as contagious diseases the plague, incubus, hydrophobia, and elephantiasis. Galen expresses his sentiments on the contagious nature of certain diseases in the following terms: “That a pestilential state of the atmosphere produces fever, is unknown to no one possessed of good understanding ”

“ Etiology.—Doubtless depending on the proliferation in the affected tissues of some specific micro-organism, not yet satisfactorily separated, the germ of sloughing phagedæna attacks the healthy as well as the debilitated, young or old, male or female. It finds its special opportunity in the bodies of men who, from overwork, underfeeding, exposure, malaria, dysentery, scorbutus, and the like, are physically depressed. Thus it is apt to attack the half-starved, malaria-stricken pioneers in jungle lands, overdriven slave gangs, and soldiers campaigning in the tropics. ”

“ Elephantiasis (Arabian) is usually situated in the lower extremities, in men in the scrotum and penis, in women in the labium pudendi, mons veneris, and the mammæ; more rarely it attacks the upper extremities or, indeed, the head. The disease develops during repeated attacks, which occur at irregular intervals of weeks, months or years, of fever accompanied by symptoms of lymphangitis and erysipelas (elephantoid fever) , and especially as the result of different accidental occurrences such as chills, bodily exertions, external irritation. ”

“ When persons have been bitten by the viper or echidna, or some such venomous animal, pain supervenes, at first of the part which has been bitten, but afterwards of the whole body. In the bite there appear two perforations at a little distance from one another, from which there is a discharge of blood and ichorous fluid, and afterwards of an oily one, but in all cases of a poisonous fluid, which they affirm to be the poison of the reptiles. Swelling comes on around the wound, which is reddish and livid ”

“ In malaria, if the liver be enlarged the spleen is still more so; the reverse is the case in liver abscess. (3) The malaria parasite cannot be found in the blood in non-malarial hepatitis. (4) In liver abscess the fever is almost invariably an evening one; in malaria it most frequently comes on earlier in the day. (5) Quotidian periodicity, contrary to what is the case with tertian or quartan periodicity, is by no means pathognomonic of, or peculiar to, malaria. (6) The almost invariable history of antecedent dysentery, or, at least, of bowel complaint, in liver abscess. ”

“ The special symptoms of the Echinococcus vary, like those of other bladder-worms, with its situation and size: when it grows within cavities with more or less firm limits compression of adjoining vessels and glandular passages often results, producing œdema, varicose veins, congestion of various organs, or even dyspnœa, if the parasite occur in the thorax. The liver is its most frequent seat, and next the lung; but there is scarcely any organ of the body in which it has not been found, even the bones being sometimes affected. ”

“ The recent outbreak of septicaemic plague in Ceylon at a time when there was no plague noted in rats would indicate that other transmitting agents than infected rat fleas were operative. The most probable transmitting insects to be suspected would be the bedbug and human flea. ”

“ Around the bite blisters arise, as from burning with fire, the disease spreads by extending to the surrounding parts, and the gums discharge blood. Trembling, heavy sleep, and a cold perspiration succeed these symptoms. Those bitten by the echidna appear to escape with less danger than those by the viper; and of these they run the least risk who have previously taken food. In treating them the most effectual remedy is eating garlic and drinking wine, so that if one can endure this course he will not stand in need of any other remedy. And let them eat also leeks, onions, and acrid pickle. ”

“ Echtisia (Wm. S. Merrell Chemical Co.) , Ecthol (Battle and Co.) and Echitone (Strong, Cobb and Co.) are proprietary preparations each of which is alleged to contain echinacea as its chief constituent. In 1909 the Council examined into the claims made for echinacea. This drug has been claimed to be a “specific” for rattlesnake bite, syphilis, typhoid fever, malaria, diphtheria and hydrophobia. Enthusiasts have credited it with equally certain curative effects in tuberculosis, tetanus, and exophthalmic goiter and with power of retarding the development of cancer. ”

“ More or less pigmentation, and sometimes superficial scarring, may remain to mark the site of the lesions.
Itching is rarely present, but there may be more or less pain and tenderness.
What is the cause of ecthyma?
It is essentially a disease of the poorly cared-for and ill-fed; the direct exciting cause is the introduction of pyogenic microörganisms into the follicular openings. It is closely allied to impetigo contagiosa, and may in fact be regarded as a markedly inflammatory form of the latter affection. It seems much less contagious, however. It is commonly observed in male adults. ”

“ In the immature fluke we may now discern the mouth, the buccal or cephalic sucker, the pharyngeal bulb, the œsophagus, the digestive cæca, the coronal spines, the contractile vesicle, the aquiferous system of vessels, the matrices of the yelk-forming glands, and also a central mass of cellules, from which all the other reproductive organs will in due time be developed. In the adult Echinostoma militare the upper third of the body is clothed with little spines. ”

“ In twenty-one experiments out of thirty-eight, healthy rats living in flea-proof cages contracted plague when exposed to rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis) , collected from rats dead or dying of septicæmic plague.
Close contact of plague-infected with healthy animals, if fleas are excluded, does not give rise to an epizootic among the latter. As the huts were never cleaned out, close contact included contact with feces and urine of infected animals, and contact with, and eating of food contaminated with feces and urine of infected animals, as well as pus from open plague ulcers. ”

“ Chief Phys., Jewish Hosp., Berlin.
“On the 26th of March this year (1883) , I inserted a small portion of infected tissue out of the peripleural abscess of a patient suffering from primary aktinomykosis of the lungs through an incision into the abdomen. The rabbit showed no symptoms of illness during life; the patient died.... The rabbit was killed June 12th, 1883. In the abdomen were found a number of swellings from the size of a cherry to that of a grain of hemp seed.... This gives the first proof of the possibility of transmitting aktinomykosis from man to animals.... ”

“ It is, therefore, recognised that an erysipelatoid inflammation frequently recurring is an essential feature in the production of elephantiasis arabum. This theory, then, takes up a somewhat different standpoint. In those we have already considered the adult worm is said to be situated in the proximal end of the lymphatics; in the present case it is situated in the peripheral part, and the obstruction is produced between the worm and the thoracic duct. It is, as you will realise, an absolutely different point of view. ”