Bukht-Yíshú',*

a Christian of Baghdad, was a skilful physician and a true and tender man; and he was attached to the service of al-Ma'mún the Caliph. Now one of the children of Háshim, a kinsman of al-Ma'mún, was attacked with dysentery, and al-Ma'mún, being greatly attached to him, sent Bukht-Yíshú' to treat him. So he, for al-Ma'mún's sake, girded up his loins in service, and treated him in various ways, but to no purpose, for the case passed beyond his powers. So Bukht-Yíshú' was ashamed before al-Ma'mún; but al-Ma'mún said to him: “Be not ashamed, for thou didst fulfil thine utmost endeavour, but God Almighty doth not desire that it should succeed. Acquiesce in Fate, even as we have acquiesced.” Bukht-Yíshú', seeing al-Ma'mún thus hopeless, replied: “One other remedy remains, and it is a perilous one; but, trusting to the fortune of the Prince of Believers, I will attempt it, and perchance God Most High may cause it to succeed.”

Now the patient was going to stool fifty or sixty times a day. So Bukht-Yíshú' prepared a purgative and administered it to him; and on the day whereon he took the purgative, his diarrhœa was still further increased; but next day it stopped. So the physicians asked him, “What hazardous treatment was that which thou didst adopt yesterday?” He answered: “The materies morbi of this diarrhœa was from the brain, and until it was dislodged from the brain the flux would not cease. I feared that if I administered a purgative the patient's strength might not be equal to the increased diarrhœa; but at length, when I plucked up heart, [I saw that] there was hope in giving the purgative, but none in withholding it. So I gave it, and God Most High vouchsafed a cure; and my opinion was justified, namely, that if the purgative were withheld, only the death of the patient was to be expected; but that if it were administered, there was a possibility of either life or death. Therefore, seeing that to give the purgative was the better course, I administered it.”