who is a fresh emigrant from the Frankish lands is ruder in character than those who have become acclimatized and have held long associations with the Muslims Medical practices Usama gives us details of medical practices by mentioning medical cures he has witnessed. For example, someone who had lost his speech because of dust in his throat from sifting. He was given vinegar by a physician and cured: He drank it and took his seat for an instant, after which he felt nauseated and began to vomit clay in abundance, mixed with the vinegar that he had drunk. Consequently his throat became open again and his speech normal. Another example is when Usama is suffering from a cold; he is given an Indian melon which cures him: 'no sooner had I finished eating it than I began to perspire and the cold which I felt disappeared'. Arab doctors were also good at bone setting, as well as stitching, Usama describes one man whose face was struck with a sword which: Cut through his eyebrow, eyelid, cheek, nose and upper lip, making the whole side of his face hang down on his chest. ..his face was stitched and his cut was treated until he was healed and returned to his former condition. Usama is often quoted out of context to "prove" Arab medicine as superior to that of the Franks in his time. He gives an example of the difference between Thabit, a Christian [Arab] physician sent by Usama's uncle with that of a Frankish physician. Thabit describes his method of treatment: "They brought before me a knight in whose leg an abscess had grown; and a woman afflicted with imbecility .To the knight I applied a small poultice until the abscess opened and became well; and the woman I put on a diet and made her humour wet." In contrast, the Frankish physician amputated the knight's leg causing him to die on the spot, and to the woman, he diagnosed that she had been possessed by a devil and made an incision in her skull which also killed the woman. However, Usama also describes examples of successful Frankish medicine. He describes the treatment given to a knight by a Frankish physician: A horse kicked him in the leg, which was subsequently infected and which opened in fourteen different places. Every time one of these cuts would close in one place,