‎MADDEN, R.R. (Richard) (1798-1886):‎
‎Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, in 1824, 1825, 1826, and 1827. Volume 1 (of 2). (FIRST EDITION).‎

‎London, Henry Colburn, 1829, in-8vo, handcoloured lithogr. frontispiece (the author in his Syrian costume) + XVI + 402 p., bound in half calf with corners, marroun and green title and vol. labels on spine, goldtooled spine, corners lightly used, marbled edges. Very fine copy.‎

Reference : 59476aaf

‎First edition. This first volume contains 24 letters to British men of high rank on a wide variety of ethnographical matters, many of which are of medical character. The author was an Irish physician; in these letters he made observations on e.g. opium eaters, the state of medicine at Constantinople (a consultation, medical priest, wounded artillery man, amulets, vapour bath, etc.), harems, ceremonies, law, the plague at Alexandria, malaria, filth of Turkish towns, religion, audience with the sultan, medical advice to western travellers in the Middle East, and many many other most interesting aspects.In his preface he describes the difficulty he encountered , when his fate had been "... to have been taken for a spy in Syria, to have endangered my life in Candia, for refusing to administer poison, to have been shot in Canea twice, and once on the Nile by Turkish soldiers, to have been accused of changing the fragments of a broken statue into gold at Thebes, to have been charged with sorcery in Nubia, and to have been captive with Greek pirates, for wearing a long beard, when taken in a vessel bearing Turkish property ...". (Blackmer 1036; Tobler V/30; Rohricht 1707). ‎