国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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More notable than any of the above, as much on account of its extraordinary prevalence as on account of its limitation to certain localities is the disease called goitre or bronchocele. It is met with in all the country from Kashghar to Khutan, but attains its maximum of frequency and development at Yarkand itself. Here it is the exception to escape this hideous deformity and most inconvenient disease. It is seen in all forms and stages of growth, and in all classes and ages from the teething infant to the toothless grey beard, and does not appear materially to shorten life. In examining promiscuous groups of the people about our Residency and in attendance at the dispensary, I, on different occasions counted 7 out of 10, 11 out of 13, 5 out of 7, 3 out of 12, 9 out of 15, and on one occasion an entire group of 7 goitrous subjects. Their numbers in the bazar crowds is surprising and the enormous development and deformity in some cases are as astonishing as they are repulsive. I did not see a single case of cretinism, though I was told that idiotcy was not uncommon amongst children in whom the disease attained a rapid development. The people call goitre bûceic or bûghczc and attribute it to the water they drink. The city, where the disease is far more common than in the rural districts or hills, is supplied with water by canals from the Zarafshan or Yarkand River, which takes its rise, and in its upper course flows, amongst mountains of micaceous schist and slate shales. On the plain, too, it flows over a sandy soil largely mixed with mica, as do the canals drawn from it. These last are conducted into the city and there from time to time replenish a number of uncovered tanks or reservoirs sunk in the loose soil of the ground for the supply of the citizens. Their water is more or less stagnant and full of confervoe, and all sorts of impurities derived from the bordering roadways. Some of the people more than usually affected by this disease applied at the dispensary for relief, but the great majority hardly considered it a disease, and none but children in whom the growth was incipient were treated with any hope of benefit.

Another class of diseases, owing their origin to the habits of the people, as distinct from the effects of climate, deserves a brief notice, inasmuch as they afford a pretty correct idea of the state of morals, domestic habits and vicious practices amongst the people. Venereal affections though not uncommon are still far less frequent than the known lax morality and promiscuous intercourse of the sexes would lead one to expect, unless indeed such cases have not so freely shown as others free from any stigma of reproach have done. But such as were seen included some of the most repulsive and destructive forms of secondary syphilis, aggravated apparently by abuse of mercurial remedies.

The frequency of skin diseases may be recognized as an exponent of the dirty habits of the people, and their little habitude to ablution. But the last of the more prevalent afflictions we need here notice is the dyspepsia produced by the abuse of opium and Indian hemp. Amongst the city people everywhere it is met in a very aggravated form too frequently, and marks very surely the destructive effects of those poisons. The haggard, hungry, dolorous and discontented looks of these wretched victims of their passion tell but too truly the loss of all pleasure in life to them, and speak for the necessity of their continuance in the vice to eke out to its bitter end the short span of aimless existence left for them.

Record of sick, out-door and in-door patients, treated at the Dispensary of the Kâshghar Embassy from the 1st November 1873, at Sânjû, to the 24th May 1874, at Kokyar.

General diseases.   Local diseases.

Agues ...

Influenza   ...
Mumps...

Erysipelas   ...

Rheumatism   ...

Lumbago   ...

Gout   ...

Syphilis, Primary ... „ Secondary... Scrofula   ...
Phthisis, Pulmonary

Hcemoptysis   ...

Scurvy   ...

Anaemia

Anasarca   ...

20

16

13

5 83 23 7 16 68 16

6 5 5 13

7

303

Nervous system.

Paraplegia   9

Epilepsy   ...   3

Neuralgia   ...   89

Mania   ...   5

Dementia   . . .   ...   8

Hysteria   ...   ...   9

Diseases of the Eye.

Conjunctivitis ...   ... 321

Pterygium   ...   ...   13

Ulcer of cornea   ...   6

Albugo   ...   ...   15

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