'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎43] (74/714)

WAYS AND MEANS
43
&c.), is but little larger than a European bug, but is of a
dark grey colour with little red spots on its back. 1 A favourite
prescription ot the 1 ersian practitioner 5 should anv one have been
bitten, is to make the patient drink off a bowl of sour milk, then to
place him in a seat suspended by cords to the ceiling, and twisting
these, to spin him round as they unwind until he is violently sick;
by which heroic remedy the poison is supposed to be effectively
expelled. Another remedy is to wrap the bitten part in the still
warm skin of a newly killed bullock. It is only fair to add that
there is a small class of persons who disbelieve absolutely in the
prowess of the Mianeh bug. Dr. Cormick, who, like his father
before him, spent many years of his life as a physician in Persia,
always declared that the current tales were absurd fictions; and
facetious travellers who have reposed at Mianeh with impunity
have been known to style the insect a hum-bug. On the other
hand, I know of persons who have suffered for months from
the effects of the bite; and an infantry regiment, marching from
Tabriz to Teheran in April 1891, had 130 men laid up in the
hospital from this cause. In 1817 Kotzebue mentions two quite
recent cases both of which were attended with fatal results. 2
It only remains to notice Zinjan and Sultanieh. The former is
a considerable town with over 20,000 inhabitants, and is the capital
Zinjan and ^ ie district of Khamseh. It was the original stronghold
Suitameh 0 f the sect of the Babis ; and here it was that in 1850, after
the execution of the Bab at Tabriz, a great massacre took place of his
fanatical adherents. Sultanieh is one of the deposed capitals of the
past. Three centuries ago travellers expatiated upon its splendid
palaces and mosques, and left illustrations of its external appearance
and surroundings. War, earthquakes, the march of time and the
caprice of royalty have combined to effect its degradation ; and
shrinking at the feet of the superb mausoleum of Sultan Khoda-
bundeh, it is now only a shadow of its ancient self. 3
1 Vide an appendix on the subject in Eastwick, vol. ii.; and Baron Walckenaer's
Histoire Naturelle ties Insectes.
2 One was an English servant of the British Consulate at Tabriz, the other a
Cossack servant of the Russian Envoy, Baron Wrede. Narrative of a Journey,
p. 211.
3 In the early part of the present centurj' Fath Ali Shah made Sultanieh his
summer quarters, retiring there for the hot months of every year with his army,
his court, and his wives, and spending the time in hunting and enjoyment. But
after the Russians had, in 1828, approached so near to the ' Asylum of the
Universe' as Turkomanchai, his outraged dignity could tolerate Sultanieh no