Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

 

Here’s a Persian Remedy if a Bone Sticks in Your Throat.

     A new and ingenious remedy for a bone in the throat will be found in an account of a Persian pilgrimage published under the title of “The Glory of the Shia World.” The doctor was Mirza Sadik Khan, chief physician of the vakil ul mulk:

     The patient was brought in on the verge of death, and when his condition had been described the learned physician stroked his long beard and exclaimed: ‘By Allah! This case would be hopeless except for me, whose perception is phenomenal. The cause of this man’s state is a bone lodged in the throat so firmly that no afforts avail to dislodge it. Therefore either the man must quickly die or the bone must be dissolved, and by what agency? Thanks be to Allah, I am a physician and a Kermani and have observed that wolves who live on raw meat and bones never suffer any calamity such as that of the patient. Therefore it is clear to me that the breath of a wolf dissolves bones and that if one breathes down the throat of a patient the bone will be dissolved.

     “Infinite are the marvels of Allah, for when a wolf belonging to a buffoon was brought in and breathed on the patient suddenly a fit of choking ensued and the bone, dissolved without doubt by the breath of a wolf, was loosened and extracted.