To illustrate the effect of a medical mission in disarming opposition, I may add that, in 1907, when it was feared that, owing to the need for retrenchment, the Society would have to close the work in Mosul, a petition, signed by most of the prominent Mohammedan residents, including the chief mullahs, was brought to me, asking that I would remit it at once to the Society. It was a request that the Medical Mission should not be withdrawn, as it had been such a boon to the inhabitants of the city. In a very wonderful manner God heard and answered our prayers, and the Mission is not to be closed, but rather it is hoped to equip it more thoroughly. The operations most frequently called for in Mosul are those for "cataract" and vesical stone, but patients come with many other diseases, both surgical and medical. The city is full of phthisis; the insanitary conditions under which the vast majority of the inhabitants live favour its rapid dissemination. Smallpox and typhoid fever are very common, and once these diseases have been definitely diagnosed, neither the patient nor his friends will permit any further medical treatment. For the latter disease the patient is kept on fairly strict diet until he "perspires." This to the native mind denotes the end of all possible danger, so he is then pressed to eat anything and everything, with disastrous results. Malaria, dysentery, hepatic abscesses are also rife; there have also been epidemics of cholera and plague, but not of late years. Once the projected Baghdad Railway (which will pass through Mosul) is an accomplished fact, we may expect the importation of plague from the south, unless the most stringent precautions are taken. The Bedouin Arab can rarely be persuaded to stop in the city; after the freedom of life in the desert, he feels stifled within the four walls of a house. Ere leaving Mosul I had a curious demonstration of this fact. An old blind Arab was brought to me by his son, suffering from double cataract. I told him that by means of a simple operation he might once again be able to see, but that he would have to stay in the hospital for a few days. He indignantly refused, saying he would rather remain blind the rest of his life than sleep beneath a roof. In vain did his son plead with him, and finding that I would not operate at once and allow him to be treated as an out-patient, the old man went sorrowfully away.