Measles

Know that measles is like yellow gall pox. In most other symptoms there is no difference between these diseases, and the only difference between them is that measles comes from yellow bile and that the rash with it is smaller in size. It does not seem to protrude above the skin and does not have any significant convexity, especially at the beginning of the disease, but pockmarks at the first appearance protrude and have a convexity. Measles is not as dangerous as smallpox, and affects the eyes less than smallpox; the signs of measles are close to the signs of smallpox, but with measles the urge to vomit is more frequent and the faintness and burning are stronger, while the pain in the back is less. The fact is that with smallpox, such pain comes from blood overflow, straining the vessels located on the back, because the cause of smallpox is the abundance of spoiled blood, and measles comes from the strong malignancy of the poor amount of spoiled blood. Measles most often appears immediately, and pockmarks - one after another.

The signs of benign measles are similar to those of benign smallpox: measles that breaks out quickly, appears and matures quickly is benign,  while a hard, blue or violet rash is malignant. Measles, which matures slowly, with frequent fainting and lightheadedness, kills; when the rash disappears all at once, this is also not good and causes fainting.

Treatment. In case of smallpox, you must hurry and remove the blood in the right amount, if conditions allow it; the same should be done for measles, if it is accompanied by congestion. The period for bloodletting is until the fourth day, and when smallpox has already appeared, then you should not engage in bloodletting, unless you observe a large overflow of blood and a predominance of matter; then release blood in an amount that alleviates the disease. Bloodletting is the most useful remedy used for this disease; if you open the nasal vessel, it brings the same benefit as bleeding from the nose, and protects the upper parts of the body from the danger of smallpox; besides, bloodletting is easier for children. If bloodletting is necessary, but the blood has not been completely released in the required quantity, then you can be afraid that any limb will rot; the same thing sometimes threatens the patient, whose natural warmth is constantly and severely extinguished.

In both diseases, one should first feed with foods that strengthen, distract and extinguish, without blocking the nature and without thickening the blood, for example, jujube stew with tamarind, palm flower or lentil stew in Isfidbajo, as well as dishes that produce a slight softening of the nature, for which Tamarind and what corresponds to it should be added to food; Pumpkin soup and Rakka melons are also useful. In a word, the nature should be soft at first, and it is best to soften it with tamarind, and if the nature does not respond to it, then manna is added to it, using it carefully and with caution, or taranjubin, or pickled plums. Sometimes it is useful, at the first appearance of smallpox, to give three dirhams of thickly brewed pandanus juice with one camphor cake; A drink made from palm blossom also brings great benefits at such times. When the disease intensifies and passes the second day and pockmarks begin to appear, then cooling often turns out to be the cause of a big mistake, since it locks the excess inside and directs it to the main organs, not giving the matter the opportunity to emerge and come out; this causes restlessness and melancholy and sometimes leads to fainting. On the contrary, the excess in this case should be helped by means that lift them and open blockages, for example, fennel or celery with sugar in the form of squeezed juice or in the form of a decoction of their roots and seeds. Sometimes the patient is given a little saffron to smell. Fig juice is very good in this case, because figs strongly drive excess to the outer skin, and this is one of the ways to get rid of their harmfulness.

Among the remedies that are very useful at such times are the following; take washed lakka - five dirhams, shelled lentils - seven dirhams, tragacanth - three dirhams, boil in half a rittle of water until a quarter of a rittle remains, and give it to drink. By the way, the following medicine is very conducive to the outbreak of smallpox: take yellow figs - seven dirhams, peeled lentils - three dirhams, lacca - three dirhams, tragacanth and fennel seeds - two dirhams each, boil in one and a half ritls of water until about a third of the broth remains , filter and give to drink; This medicine drives heat away from the heart area and prevents interruptions.

The patient should not be allowed to touch the oil at all at this time; he must be wrapped up and removed from the cold air, especially in winter, and treated as if he were sweating, for the cold clogs the pores and drives the juices back. Drinking plenty of snow-chilled water and staying in a canvas tent for coolness is very harmful for such a patient. Bloodletting also sometimes turns out to be harmful, since it returns and turns back what has already come out; action should be taken against this after two or three days.

When, as a result of wrapping and warming the patient, something like fainting occurs or he falls into an almost fainting state, it is inevitable to cool the air - especially the air inhaled by the patient, and resort to the scent of camphor and sandalwood. When it is no longer possible to avoid exposing the patient's body in a canvas tent or in slightly cool air, then this is done; the same thing happens if help by warming or refusing to cool, as well as a quick rash of pockmarks does not give the patient relief, and you see that the heat is blazing and the tongue is turning black, then beware of warming the patient.

Those suffering from smallpox and measles should avoid medicinal bandages on the abdomen, because this poses two dangers: that breathing will be restricted at the site of the bandage and that malignant diarrhea and urination of blood will begin.

At the end of the illness, one should protect the nature and feed instead of lentils, as they are, lentils, boiled several times, with renewed water. Instead of lentils acidified with tamarind, you should give lentils acidified with pomegranate juice, sumac, unripe grape juice or something similar.

As for medicines that thicken and cool the blood and prevent its boiling, which are prescribed to be taken at the beginning of the disease, such as, for example, thickly brewed juice of rhubarb or unripe grapes, juices of cold fruits and, especially, a drink with pandanus, as well as a drink made from palm flowers , the palm flower itself and the heart of the palm. There are many recipes for a drink with pandanus and we mention them in the Pharmacopoeia, but here we will give a wonderful, strong recipe, namely the one in which the drink is made with the whey of repeatedly fermented raib. The power of this drink is very great, and its recipe is as follows: take two parts of thickly brewed pandanus juice, and if the juice is not at hand, then take pandanus, saw it and use sawdust, or pound it and take crushed wood and soak it for several days with half the amount of sandalwood in distilled vinegar or pure juice of unripe grapes. Then the tree is boiled in this liquid, carefully and for a long time, until it is boiled, squeezed out and the squeezed juice is taken; The more vinegar or unripe grape juice you add, the better. Then they take the whey from under the skimmed doug, cleared of the curdled part, which is either carefully strained, or the doug is boiled, just as cheese whey is boiled, until the watery part comes off. Then they take barley flour and make fukka from it and from the whey from raib fukka, ferment it, strain it and then make fukka from it and from barley flour again and ferment it, and every time this is repeated, the fukka gets better. Then take five parts of fukka and one third of each of Chinese pear juice, sour juicy quince juice, sour pomegranate juice, sour juicy apple juice, hawthorn juice, lemon juice, sour plum juice, squeezed palm blossom juice, Tabaristan kachim juice, not quite ripe berries of Syrian mulberry, juice of sour unripe apricots, squeezed juice of unripe grapes, squeezed rhubarb, squeezed juice of young shoots of grapes, squeezed juice of Persian rose, squeezed water lily juice and squeezed violet juice, as well as two-thirds each of squeezed citron acid, squeezed orange acid , a quarter of the squeezed juice of coriander, lettuce, fresh poppy leaves, chicory and purslane, a quarter of the squeezed juice of willow leaves, apple leaves, pear leaves, hawthorn leaves, rose leaves, shepherd's staff leaves, half a tenth of the squeezed juice large plantain, dry rose, dry water lily, dry barberry, chicory seeds, lettuce seeds, pomegranate flowers, water lily and rose, a sixth of the squeezed juice of fresh mint and half of the squeezed juice of fresh barberry. Medicines and squeezed juices are tied and mixed on fire, four parts are thrown there two parts of peeled barley, three parts of sumac and three parts of pomegranate seeds and boil it all over the fire until half of the broth remains. The composition is left until it cools down, and then it is ground with force and filtered, after which for every three hundred dirhams of the composition, take a misqal of camphor, grind the camphor into powder and pour it into the bottom of the pumpkin or flask. Then the medicine is carefully poured onto the camphor, the neck of the vessel is tied with something very tight and kept on hot coals until it becomes clear that the composition is about to boil. Then the vessel is removed from the heat, the mixture is shaken and poured into a clay pot, which is plugged so that the camphor does not disappear or evaporate. Up to ten dirhams are given for taking medicine. Some people add sumbul, or ginger, fennel seeds, anise, pepper and sati to this composition in as many parts as they find.

When the pockmarks have completely disappeared and the seventh Day of illness has passed, and it becomes clear that they are ripe, it will be good to carefully pierce them with a golden needle, picking up the liquid with a piece of cotton wool. As for salting, you can’t do without it, but when you want to add salt to the pockmarks, then keep the salt away from the large, painful pockmarks that you recently pierced, since salting causes pain, and it’s better to salt the others, but leave these so that the path the puncture was delayed, and then added salt. Do not salt the pockmarks before they are ripe,  for this sometimes causes swelling and causes severe pain. Salting is an inevitable thing after the pocks are ripe, and is done with salt water to which a little saffron is added; if this water is rose water, so much the better, but the ultimate desire is to boil roses, tamarisk and lentils in water and then salt it, especially if camphor and sandalwood are added there. Salting promotes ripening, dries and causes the pockmarks to fall off. Fumigation with tamarisk smoke is also very useful, and in winter you should constantly burn tamarisk wood. If the pockmarks are very wet, then they must be fumigated with the smoke of the myrtle tree and its leaves.

When the pockmarks are ripe and care must be taken to dry them, one of the good remedies is to force the patient with smallpox to lie on rice, millet, barley or bean flour. It is best to fill a mattress made of rare fabric with flour through which the force of the flour passes. Licorice leaves are good in this case, but the oil is also harmful at such a time, because it prevents drying. When the pockmarks begin to dry out, they should be lubricated with the mentioned medications that promote this, with a small amount of saffron.

When ulcers arise from pockmarks, a white plaster, especially mixed with a small amount of camphor, is beneficial, as well as scraping from the roots of reeds with rose water and scraping from the roots of a willow tree or a hawthorn tree; Sometimes it is useful to sprinkle the ulcers with lead white or lead oxide. If scabs form on the nose, a wax ointment prepared with pure rose oil, to which a little white lead and kalimiyya is added, helps. It is useful to use the oil after drying and ulceration; when dry, it is used with substances that quickly separate scabs, and when ulcerated, it is used because it serves as a material for plasters, and red plaster is a good remedy for ulcers in smallpox.