The author of the Kámilu'ṣ-Ṣaná'at*

was physician to 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla*

in Párs, in the city of Shíráz. Now in that city there was a porter who used to carry loads of four hundred and five hundred maunds on his back. And every five or six months he would be attacked by headache, and become restless, remaining so for ten*

days and nights. One time he was attacked by headache, and when seven or eight days had elapsed, he several times determined to destroy himself. At length one day this physician passed by the door of his house. The porter's brother ran to meet him, did reverence to him, and, conjuring him by God Most High, told him his brother's condition. “Bring him to me,” said the physician. So they called him before the physician, who saw that he was a big man, of bulky frame, wearing on his feet a pair of shoes each of which weighed a maund and a half. Then the physician asked for and examined his urine; after which, “Bring him with me into the open country,” said he. They did so. On their arrival there, he bade his servant take the turban from his head, and cast it round his neck. Then he ordered another servant to take the shoes off the porter's feet and kick him on the back of the neck. The porter's sons wept, but the physician was a man of consideration, so that they could say nothing. Then the physician ordered his servant to throw the turban round his neck, to mount his horse, and to make the porter run round the plain. The servant did as he was bid. Blood began to flow from the porter's nostrils. “Now,” said the physician, “let him alone, that the blood may flow from him, for he stinketh worse than a corpse.” The man fell asleep amidst the blood which flowed from his nose, and three hundred dirhams' weight of blood escaped from his nostrils. They bore him thence, and he slept for a day and a night, and his headache passed away and never again returned.

Then 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla questioned the physician as to the rationale of this treatment. “O King,” he replied, “for some while the blood had coagulated*

in his head, and it was impossible to relieve this congestion by means of belladonna,*

so I devised another treatment, which proved successful.”