More capitulation towards the great religion of peace.

Why oh why are we cowtowing to followers of this stupid death cult?

Soon any patient of a m doc will be required to wear death cult sanctioned garb. No head covering, no burka ... tough... against their religion to help you. Die in emerg. Just one more way to allow them to get rid of the infidels.

Posted by: SickofitALL at February 3, 2008 9:11 AM

If they were only(potentially) killing fellow muslims with the potential infections it would be okay but you can be certain that they wont. Nor will tney care as religious rationalisation is Islam's byword.

Naturally the BMC will back down with the rest of the gutless establishment, like in the post below.

we are all slowly being dragged back into the dark ages amnd almost without a whimper.

Posted by: MisIslamist at February 3, 2008 9:14 AM

"Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital" is the main childrens hospital in my home town and there will be hell to pay if some of the mothers who attend with their kids think that their children are being put at risk by this lot.

Liverpudlian mothers do not do 'diplomatic' when it comes to the welfare of their kids. Time to fire a few letters and e-mails off methinks.

Posted by: Wishbone at February 3, 2008 9:27 AM

These women should only be allowed to treat Muslims, and possibly reduce the Muslim population of the UK, because they'd put our infidel lives at risk.

Posted by: Jerusalem Posts at February 3, 2008 9:38 AM

So any parties in the UK besides the BNP speaking out against all this surrender?

Posted by: Elric66 at February 3, 2008 9:46 AM

Whatever happened to "cleanliness is next to Godliness?"

Obviously that doesn't apply to muslims.

"No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," it said."

The cheek! When in their hellhole countries, women wouldn't even be allowed to get an education, let alone a medical degree paid for by the British taxpayer.

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at February 3, 2008 9:48 AM

Who is stupid enough to let a Muslim treat them.. Would they uphold the hippocratic oath against a non-believer. IF they do not want to abide by our rules. send them back to hell where they came from. We have no time and no money for this. A degenerate culture from a degenerate cult...

Posted by: lonewolf at February 3, 2008 9:48 AM

While they are students: Don't comply, don't graduate.

For those in practice: Don't comply, loose your license/job.

Posted by: PRCS at February 3, 2008 10:07 AM

Only a putrid backward religion does not let you relax the rules if relaxation promotes human health. The fact that islam has such little regard for human life is indicative of what the religion is about.

Of course, the problem here is a false one like trying to accommodate the muslim woman who should not be working at all and particularly as a nurse unless it is in a gender segregated facility. This is how a false issue about accommodating a muslim woman who obviously is not a strict practitioner anyway somehow is twisted to force accommodation.

This demanded accommodation seems consistent with the last battle instruction given to muslims in England from the waring caliphate that "those who cure you will kill."

The truth is islam is endeavoring to reinstate the medieval meaning of a pox upon you.

Posted by: David England at February 3, 2008 10:26 AM

Why oh why are we cowtowing to followers of this stupid death cult? --posted above

Every day I ponder that. I don't know. Why do pods of whales beach themselves?

Posted by: darcy at February 3, 2008 10:42 AM

"But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam."

And since when do medical examinations or surgeries take place "in public"? Maybe back in Pakistan there are open-air clinics, but not in the U.K. methinks.

Posted by: ebonystone at February 3, 2008 10:56 AM

That's what happens when we have commies like Red Ken in charge.

BAN MUSLIM IMMIGRATION

Posted by: Crusader at February 3, 2008 11:01 AM

"Dr Charles Tannock, a Conservative MEP and former hospital consultant, said: 'These students are being trained using taxpayers' money and they have a duty of care to their patients not to put their health at risk.

'Perhaps these women should not be choosing medicine as a career if they feel unable to abide by the guidelines that everyone else has to follow."

But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.

'No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow,' it said."
-- from the article above

Comes the moment to decide.

Posted by: Hugh at February 3, 2008 11:07 AM

The muslim medics have to find out the hard way. Islam cannot protect them from the superbugs.

Posted by: callmeinfidel at February 3, 2008 11:37 AM

"Every day I ponder that. I don't know. Why do pods of whales beach themselves?

Posted by: darcy "

....earth has a magnetic core, the whales have a built in navigational memory passed on from generation to generation..this built in navigational memory is magnetically based , much in the same manner as a manmade compass....scientific studies have shown that the earths magnetic poles reverse poles about every 10,000 years....the poles are now in this process of reversing polarity....it throws the whales navigational memories off....the whales may think they are heading due north to the traditional spawning seas but in fact may be 10-15 degrees off ....which causes them to run aground...

"Why oh why are we cowtowing to followers of this stupid death cult?"

.....it is easier to be stupid (a fatal human trait)....than it is to do the right thing, fight tyranny, oppression, and brain dead buffoons attacking under the banner of some long dead caravan raiding buffoon....

.....living free and being fair, just, and honest are far more difficult to do than submiting to dominant buffoons....

...apparently a lot of people are too stupid to fight for what is right....they just don't know the fate that awaits them under Islam....

Ban Muslim Immigration..

Posted by: exsgtbrown at February 3, 2008 12:04 PM

From the article:

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow".

Headline: England Reverts -- to Victorian Era!

Posted by: cantor at February 3, 2008 12:05 PM

Isn't the solution obvious? Refuse to graduate any student who doesn't obey the rules. Then when Muslim groups complain about "racism", point out that white students who won't follow hygiene rules would be tossed, too.

Posted by: aynrandgirl at February 3, 2008 12:10 PM

"Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam."

....but dying from disease or mortal wounds is ok too..in Islam...

Ban Muslim Immigration...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at February 3, 2008 12:33 PM

if they don't want to wash their hands before dealing with patients, and they have licenses cancel their licenses and if their medical students. Kick them out of school

Posted by: sheepdog at February 3, 2008 12:54 PM

Perhaps they'd be willing to roll up their sleeves for jihad.

"We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/05/nterror405.xml

Posted by: kevin at February 3, 2008 2:42 PM

"But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam."

The Islamic Medical Association...Geez! It's not an authority of any kind--it's a freaking charity!

Posted by: Abscedere at February 3, 2008 2:48 PM

I'm sick of these filthy scum, literally!

Posted by: Dumbo at February 3, 2008 3:05 PM

Dr. Andrew Bostom had a lot to say about this on his blog. Here it is in its entirety:

"There is NO place in Medicine for people like these whatever their so-called “faith” dictates. Their willful violation of the basic hygiene required to perform one’s duties as a physician-in-training EXCLUDES them from the profession—PERIOD."

Posted by: Haid Dasalami at February 3, 2008 3:10 PM

Well it's not a big deal for them, they probably don't believe in bacteria and virus's anyway. To much to hope they will be sacked. I suppose we'll spend millions on special anti-bacterial sleeves or something.
When the BNP, or worse start to win seats in parliament, as I'm sure they eventually will, it's going to be amusing to watch the Left and BBC jumping through hoops attempting to explain why the white people, and white culture they so despise has turned against them.

The trouble with doors, is when you open them, sometimes it's difficult to get them shut again.
Dresden, Hiroshima etc spring to mind.

It wouldn't be the first time that Marxist social engineering has led to mass blood shed.

Posted by: Ian at February 3, 2008 3:54 PM

"No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow,"

Then there should be no Muslim women doctors or medical students. If there is then I should have the right to refuse to be treated by one.

Why is it that Muslims choose obedience to their religion over the human dignity of others? Human dignity does not seem to be a big concept in their religion. What a poverty and a problem.

Posted by: James Martel at February 3, 2008 3:55 PM

Wow, these folks have yet to join the rest of the world into the 21st century.

I don't understand why it needs to be so complicated. Follow the rules of hygiene, and graduate or maintain their medical license.

Don't follow them, don't graduate, or no longer practice medicine.

Is it really that hard, or is the British medical establishment waiting for patients to die from sepsis before they put their collective foot down?

Posted by: PorkFatRules at February 3, 2008 5:13 PM

Well it's not a big deal for them, they probably don't believe in bacteria and virus's anyway.

Posted by: aynrandgirl at February 3, 2008 5:45 PM

But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at February 3, 2008 6:26 PM

No overarching human values.

Only their damned mohammed, their damned allah and their damned jihad.

No regard for humanity whatever.

No real values.

Posted by: joeblough at February 3, 2008 6:47 PM

How somebody can be both very smart to get into Med school and yet dumb enough to believe in these so called commandments of 'god', is beyond me.
I reckon England will become Muslim if they fail to rein in these idiots and stop pandering to them in a few decades, seeing how they breed like rabbits.
Nothing short of another 'reconquista' like the Spanish kicking out the Moors (Muslims really) out will do. Sad to say, but both Spain and the rest of Europe now have a very large Muslim population that is getting bigger, all those who perished at the siege of Vienna would turn in their graves if they say their once glorious cities full of women covered from head to toe and their equally savage husbands, it was all in vain!

Posted by: Metroplex at February 3, 2008 7:25 PM

Compare the blind (and murderous) legalism of Islam, as demonstrated by the life-threatening behaviour of these Muslim female medical students, with the traditional Jewish provision of pikuach nefesh - preserving life - which can be invoked, for example, to override rules about Sabbath observance or modesty. (I am sure some of our Jewish commenters could provide classic examples of this principle in action).

Islam, seemingly, couldn't care less whether patients were exposed to the risk of contracting lethal infections; all it cares about is that the midwife, or theatre nurse, was 'properly covered'.

It is difficult to find enough bad words to describe such an obstinately, viciously stupid belief system, with such bottomless contempt for human life. OUT WITH IT. It doesn't belong in civilised countries.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at February 3, 2008 7:41 PM

"Why is it that Muslims choose obedience to their religion over the human dignity of others?"

In Islam, the Theocratic Oath trumps the Hippocratic Oath.

Posted by: cantor at February 3, 2008 8:19 PM

So much for their much vaunted claims of cleanliness. Muslims are a peurile group of people, neurotic and pathological in their obsessions. Clean/unclean. Allowed/forbidden. Believer/unbeliever. The Muslim world is a split world, a binary world, and infantile world, an idiotic world.

They are not clean. They are not good. They are not believers. They should not be allowed, they should not remain, with all of that primitive childish obsessiveness and that peurile obnoxiousness and that moronic neurotic stupidness.

Posted by: jsla at February 3, 2008 9:34 PM

The thing that I find especially troubling is that these 'students', I'm assuming that they may in fact be doing their 'Residency' in Surgery, are supposedly under the direct supervision of a senior surgeon. How did this ever get to the point of debate? There's a waiting list of candidates for those surgical training positions; you perform to standards or you're GONE!
The idea of a student telling her mentor that she gets a free pass because she says so, makes my blood boil.
As 'Dumbledoresarmy' mentioned, the concept of a Jewish surgical resident REFUSING to do a night shift over the Sabbath would be, in my humble experience, unheard of. I'm not suggesting that Drs. don't routinely trade shifts to avoid the problem, but that's a far cry from refusing to fulfill their obligations.

Posted by: DaninVan at February 3, 2008 9:54 PM

As many of you fine folk have correctly pointed out, Islam and medicine just do not mix. Note the declared (though not directly stated) statement that:

No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow...

Infidel Pride (above) hit the nail right on the head. Since Muslims lay claim to modern medicine (along with physics, astronomy, mathematics, optometry, navigation, cvics, government, ad nauseum), let's take a little peek at "their" wonderful world of medicine:
---------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 582:

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, "There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment."
----------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 628:

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

Allah's Apostle said, "(Death from) plague is martyrdom for every Muslim."
----------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 642:

Narrated 'Aisha:

Allah's Apostle used to read in his Ruqya, "In the Name of Allah" The earth of our land and the saliva of some of us cure our patient with the permission of our Lord." with a slight shower of saliva) while treating with a Ruqya.
-----------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 671:

Narrated Sad:

I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "Whoever takes seven 'Ajwa dates in the morning will not be effected by magic or poison on that day."

Along with these other fine remedies:

- A gulp of honey (for abdominal problems)
- Milk or urine of a She-camel
- Black cumin
- Indian incense (for pleurisy)
- Cauterization (not approved by Mo, but condoned)
- Shaving the head and fasting for 3 (lice)
- Truffles (for eye diseases)
- Burnt palm leave ashes (general wounds)
- Spraying of water over the chest (fever)

Yes, folks. It's all here, as spoken by the "Perfect Man."

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/071.sbt.html

Such a wonderful and enlightened belief system. I can NOT wait for the day this crap is deported from the United States of America!

I wish everyone a great Jihad-Free week!

Posted by: boneshack at February 3, 2008 10:27 PM

Sorry, I misplaced by 'blockquote'...

As many of you fine folk have correctly pointed out, Islam and medicine just do not mix. Note the declared (though not directly stated) statement that:

No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow...

Infidel Pride (above) hit the nail right on the head. Since Muslims lay claim to modern medicine (along with physics, astronomy, mathematics, optometry, navigation, cvics, government, ad nauseum), let's take a little peek at "their" wonderful world of medicine:
---------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 582:

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, "There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment."
----------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 628:

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

Allah's Apostle said, "(Death from) plague is martyrdom for every Muslim."
----------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 642:

Narrated 'Aisha:

Allah's Apostle used to read in his Ruqya, "In the Name of Allah" The earth of our land and the saliva of some of us cure our patient with the permission of our Lord." with a slight shower of saliva) while treating with a Ruqya.
-----------------
Volume 7, Book 71, Number 671:

Narrated Sad:

I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "Whoever takes seven 'Ajwa dates in the morning will not be effected by magic or poison on that day."

Along with these other fine remedies:

- A gulp of honey (for abdominal problems)
- Milk or urine of a She-camel
- Black cumin
- Indian incense (for pleurisy)
- Cauterization (not approved by Mo, but condoned)
- Shaving the head and fasting for 3 (lice)
- Truffles (for eye diseases)
- Burnt palm leave ashes (general wounds)
- Spraying of water over the chest (fever)

Yes, folks. It's all here, as spoken by the "Perfect Man."

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/071.sbt.html

Such a wonderful and enlightened belief system. I can NOT wait for the day this crap is deported from the United States of America!

I wish everyone a great Jihad-Free week!

Posted by: boneshack at February 3, 2008 10:34 PM

With all this feigned modesty . . .how is it that Allah has permitted birth at all?

Posted by: justamomof4 at February 3, 2008 10:38 PM

And they won't use alcohol to disinfect either.

I'm sure those in charge will invent the hand and arm 'condom' that will cover the sleeves so they can keep practicing. In fact there actually already is such a thing. Although how well it could be used for surgery and other delicates jobs is still questionable.

Posted by: Borg at February 3, 2008 11:40 PM

Back to Mecca they should go where they can comply with Stupidity 24/7, and forever.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 4, 2008 1:59 AM

But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.

Only those wild slutty womens do not cover their face with a burqa. The Islamic Medical Association is blaspheming.

And don't forget, Muslim doctors also refuse to wash their hands, because the soap contains alcohol.

As they insist, we need to have separate hospitals for Muslims and kufirs. And let Darwinism run its course.

Posted by: special_guest at February 4, 2008 3:10 AM

...an important rule: do not hire Muslims...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at February 4, 2008 9:19 AM

The idea of somehow covering the arms has already been suggested, by who else but the so-called
"Islamic Medical Association"(oxymoron alert):

"Dr Majid Katme, the association spokesman, said: "Exposed arms can pick up germs and there is a lot of evidence to suggest skin is safer to the patient if covered. One idea might be to produce long, sterile, disposable gloves which go up to the elbows."

And guess who'll be paying for them?

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at February 4, 2008 9:32 AM

...maybe they would wear a full body condom as in the old Steve Martin "Naked Gun Movie"...that would work....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at February 4, 2008 11:48 AM

I'd be happy to let Darwinism run its course if disease weren't communicable. Same goes for Muslim refusal to take vaccines, resulting in a resurgence of diseases (like polio) long thought dead.

Posted by: aynrandgirl at February 4, 2008 12:51 PM

Good point aynrandgirl. But it just brings us to Step 2.... Quarantine. On an international level.

Posted by: special_guest at February 4, 2008 1:04 PM

Muslima don't conform, simple as that, I have seen Muslim women wearing their work clothes and also the headscarf, I wish Islam had never been, but it's too late now, we have to fight it or it will want to take over the entire world, we must NOT let that happen!

Posted by: Metroplex at February 4, 2008 5:20 PM

boneshack,

I came across an interesting article:

"On the Present Condition of the Medical Profession in Syria", by C. V. A. Van Dyck Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 1, No. 4. (1849), pp. 559+561-591.

The author, even writing in 1849, could already see the vast disparity between the backward primitivism of Islamic medical practice, and the modern West.

And right near the beginning, we feel comfortable reading the guy, when he writes with such refreshing bluntness:

Islamism, in itself considered, must be regarded as a desolating superstition. The same principle which led the Khalifeh 'Omar to order the burning of the Alexandrian library, has since then worked the ruin of many a fair structure, and given the death blow to many a worthy enterprise. Improvement among the Osmanli Turks began, when their religion began to lose its hold upon their minds.

This intelligent bluntness would be impossible to publish today in any academic institution in the West (let alone in any MSM publication).

I'll just quote at length from the article:

A great majority of the present Arab physicians have not the slightest idea of the true anatomical structure of the human frame. Even those very few who have studied the descriptions of Avicenna, have no clear conception of the arrangement, or relative position, or functions of the different organs of the body. One of the most respectable physicians of Tripoli, a man tolerably well read in Arabic medical literature, maintained very strenuously that the liver occupied the left side of the abdominal cavity. Another, who was prescribing for a patient dying from ulceration of the bowels, declared the disease to be an "opening of the lungs." Another declared a case of bloody urine to be caused by "wind in the bladder." The pain in the back and loins which always accompanies fever, is often treated by a local abstraction of blood. Pain in the stomach is universally denominated ''pain in the heart." Cynanche tonsillaris is supposed to be caused by the tonsils, called “daughters of the ears", falling down upon the pharynx, and relief is to be obtained by "lifting them up", which is done by gentle pressure upon the tonsillar region, accompanied by friction with the thumbs along the under margin of the jaw, over its angle, towards the ears.

The only difference known between arteries and veins, is that the former pulsate and the latter do not... This entire ignorance of anatomy must continue as long as the present superstitious horror of mutilating the dead prevails.

Autopsic examinations could not be obtained in one out of a thousand cases, and dissections are out of the question.

The most implicit reliance is placed upon the state of the pulse, as an indication of health or disease, and a knowledge of its varieties is supposed to enable a person to distingtiish all morbid affections, without any inquiry into other symptoms. The patient comes to the physician, and holds out his hand; the pulse is felt in each wrist successively, and if by previous knowledge of his habits, or by catching some complaint which he may have dropped to the bystanders, the practitioner can make out the case within any reasonable degree of probability, he is content; if not, he draws out in a random conversation enough to enable him to prescribe upon some sort of foundation, but at the same time conveying the idea that his whole dependence is upon the pulse, and his knowledge of the disease derived altogether from that source. So far is this confidence carried, that women in doubt as to their situation present themselves before a physician, that he may decide from the pulse whether they are pregnant, or otherwise, and whether the foetus be a male, or a female; all of which the physician determines with the utrnost gravity and assurance, and a thousand failures can not destroy the confidence built upon a single successful " guess."

Credulity and a fondness for the miraculous still form as prominent traits in the Arab character, as in former times. The story of the king Yunau and the sage Duban, which is familiar to every reader of the Thousand and one Nights, is only akin to many others of a similar character still current in the East.

The confidence in charms and amulets, so implicit in former days, is not at all diminished in the present age. Smallpox is supposed to be communicated merely by a glance of the eye, and consequently various cases are excluded from view as carefully as possible.

Of the science of chemistry the Arabs are entirely ignorant. ... The Arabs understand by chemistry what we understand by alchemy, namely, the art of converting the baser metals into gold and silver. They still hold to the theory of four elements : fire, air, earth, and water, and all the metals and precious stones are supposed to be cooked in the bowels of the earth, by a natural process, such as the combined influence of the sun, moon and stars.

Of botany, as a science, quite as little is known as of chemistry. Although, as has been remarked, most of the articles of the materia medica are derived from the vegetable kingdom, yet plants are known only by names, not by descriptions, and, as names vary with localities, inextricable confusion arises from this source. It would be difficult to recognize any of the plants mentioned by Avicenna, merely from his descriptions, and different names are often given to the same thing in different places, or the same name is given to widely different things. From the almost total ignorance which prevails, in regard to all generic and specific distinctions, or similarities, every plant is considered as existing per se, and to bear no relation to others, except perhaps in the case of a few garden vegetables, or cultivated flowers. An Arab sees the widest difference, but no similarity, between the egg-plant, tomato and potato, and knows no difference between the red anemone and wild poppy.

[Bloodletting:]

Those who have not the means of obtaining a good European lancet, use an iron one manufactured by any smith of ordinary dexterity, and cases are not infrequent in which the operation is performed with a pen-knife, or even with a piece of glass, or a sharp flint. It is needless to add that these instruments are often broken in the flesh, and produce serious consequences.

From the entire ignorance of anatomy which prevails, and to which allusion has been made, it is the custom in the case of fat persons, whose veins are small and not distinguishable by the eye, to feel for the artery at the bend of the arm, and dive down upon it; but as the vein usually crosses the artery at the point where the pulsations of the latter are most distinctly perceptible, it is pierced first, and the blood, gushing out by the sides of the lancet, informs the operator that he has gone deep enough. To one who is aware of the frequency with which all classes resort to this operation, for headaches, stomachaches, colds, rheumatic pains, and the most trifling affections, it becomes a matter of surprise, not that accidents occur, but that they do not happen a thousand fold more often.

[Cautery:]

As is the case with blood-letting, the cautery is resorted to for the most trifling complaints, and scarcely an individual can be found who has not a greater or less number of cicatrices from this cause.

The connection between barbers and surgeons, in the East, is not yet altogether dissolved, and those "most worshipful" gentry still bleed, leech, cauterize, draw teeth, and perform sundry other operations connected with the chirurgical art. The operation of extracting "disorderly" grinders is performed without any previous division of the gum, sometimes with a hawksbill, and sometimes with a straight forceps, which break the tooth quite as often as they extract it. Physicians, so called, confine themselves to the practice of medicine, but those who pass for surgeons act in either capacity, pro re nata [as the occasion arises].

The Arabs have a snperstitious dread of all surgical operations, especially such as mutilate the body, and often prefer death to undergoing them.

Ulcers [of the skin] are also treated with resinous salves, and when these fail, resort is had to the most vile and irritating applications, such as gunpowder, coarsely powdered charcoal, and dung; and instead of being duly cleansed, they are scrupulously guarded from water.

Most individuals have a great dread lest any one but a physician should see their sores, from a superstitious notion that the eye exerts an evil influence upon them.

Pleasant odors are considered as highly injurious to patients affected with ulcers, and still more so in cases of fresh wounds, but disagreeable smells are accounted harmless; and so the patient goes about with an onion under his nose, lest an agreeable odor should accidentally meet his nostrils, and thereby injury to the sore be occasioned.

Concussions from falls, or from blows, are treated with bloodletting, without waiting for reaction. It is also common in such cases to wrap the patient in a warm sheep-skin, just stripped from the animal, lest the blood, becoming cold, should "settle" in the injured part.

Besides this, wherever it is practicable, the patient is made to drink a decoction of the hand, or foot, or some other part, of one of the mummies brought from Egypt, and great reliance is placed on the efficacy of this vile stuff in preventing any unpleasant consequences.

Fractures and dislocations are treated by a class of professed "bone-setters" Many times, these impostors succeed in convincing a person who has received a slight sprain, that it is a bad dislocation, and pull and tug thereat, in order to magnify their own skill in the eyes of the beholders, and get a larger fee from the patient. Old women have sometimes acquired great celebrity in this sort of practice, generally by reducing luxations which never occurred, or fractures which never happened. In cases of undisputed fracture, tight bandages are applied without waiting for the occurrence or subsidence of swelling, and no effort is made to secure any degree of counter-extension.

Insanity is generally attributed to Satanic possession, and no remedies are used for it, except confinement, exorcising, or a pilgrimage to the shrine of some saint. Khat, writing, alluded to previously [where if a person writes down a curse upon a piece of parchment or paper, it has powerful effects upon his enemy], is supposed often to be a cause of mental derangement, and "counter-writing" is the only remedy relied upon.

[The author ends his article by writing:]

This subject might be pursued almost indefinitely...

Posted by: cantor at February 4, 2008 6:38 PM

The same thing will happen to our medical profession if we let Muslims take over this country. We should do whatever it takes to stop that from happening. I do not have a solution to the threat, but I am open to suggestions.

Posted by: Christian at February 4, 2008 11:21 PM

Looks like muslim medics haven't learned much since 1849!

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at February 5, 2008 10:11 AM