Sat I alone forsaken- a mange-stricken camel.
-from the Pre-Islamic Ode by Tarafa Ibn al-’Abd, collected in Al-Mu’allaqat, The Hanging Odes
Pity that Tarafa didn’t have A Field Manual of Camel Diseases by Ilse Köller-Rollefson et alia to consult back in the 6th Century, from which he would have learned of folk remedies for camel mange from outside the Hijaz, such as rubbing with engine oil, from Eritrea, or pond mud, from Rajasthan, or ashes from the burnt wood of Acacia mellifera, from Sudan, or an infusion of boiled root of the desert rose, from the Turkana, or juice squeezed from the Agnosceles versicolor bugs that have been smoked out of tree tops, from the Shukria, or heated bone marrow, from the Tuareg, or sesame oil and river mud, from the Punjab, or the juice of Euphorbia somalensis mixed with urine, from Somalia, or a modern treatment of Ivermectin, from MAGAland.