Tapi Muhrika Does Not Correspond with Any One Particular Fever of the Modern Nomenclature

By Assistant-Surgeon Chetan Shah, Officiating Civil Surgeon, Gurgaon. The word Tapi Mulirika is of very frequent occurrence in the mortuary registers of the Panjab and North-Western Provinces as well as in the conversation of the natives with European physicians. Hence it is necessary to understand what it means both properly and popularly. A gentleman of very high linguistic abilities appears to entertain no doubt that Tapi muhrika is equivalent to simple continued fever, and when writing of "simple continued or ardent fever," he calls it " tapi muhrika of the natives." No doubt, literally, ardent is equivalent to Muhrika, but the word Tapi muhrika is applied to several different varieties of fever by the native physicians of the Greek school as well as by other natives, who are in the habit of using the term. The word is Arabic, and is the property of the Arabic, Persian and Urdu medical literature, and of course is in common use of the hakims (physicians), their patients and friends who follow the so-called Greek system of medicine. I have had daily to come in contact with this class of people, and I have also been studying their medical works, and my experience tells me, and every one can verify it, that any continued or remittent fever, simple or specific, is called muhrika if attended with symp-