In due course, instruments and dressings all having been prepared, the patient, in a condition of mortal terror, was led into the operating room, and induced to lie on the table. But alas, her fears gained the mastery, and she instantly jumped up, ran out of the room, and disappeared from the dispensary. This was not encouraging, but a few days later a little Jew boy suffering from vesical stone (a very common disease in Mosul, especially amongst children) was brought to the hospital by his father. We persuaded him to enter the hospital with his boy, and thus finally gained our first in-patient. The stone having been removed, and the boy making a good recovery, we had no further difficulty in getting in-patients. Our six wooden beds soon all had occupants, then we added six more beds; finally, obtaining a neighbouring house for our own residence, we made our old house (the inner compound) into a small hospital for women and children. Thus we were able to accommodate twenty-four patients, and as each had at least one friend, we often had over fifty people resident on the premises. It is this in-patient work that gives the most encouraging opportunities to the medical missionary. There in his little hospital he has patients of all creeds, lying side by side; many have been relieved or cured by operation, and will listen gratefully to all the teaching they can get. Each patient before the operation hears the doctor pray a short prayer, asking God to bless the operation and cause it to be successful. Day after day, week after week, he receives instruction, and gains an entirely new idea of what Christianity really is, and when he leaves the mission hospital and returns to his home, whether in the city or in a distant mountain village, all his old bitter opposition to Christianity has disappeared, and often he will send other patients for treatment to the English mission. The following statistics, for two years only, may prove interesting, as showing the far-reaching influence of even a badly equipped, undermanned medical mission:-- Total attendance of out-patients 24,519 Operations performed {197 Major} 569 {372 Minor} Total number of in-patients 288 Number of villages and towns, excluding Mosul, from which patients have come to the dispensary 348 This last item is especially interesting; excluding Mosul (from which naturally most of our patients are drawn), 348 different towns and villages (some as many as ten days' journey) have sent us patients, and yet the work is barely started!