Every in-patient admitted had to bring a friend to help to nurse him, as we had no proper hospital equipment and no trained nurse. Only twice in the three years did I break this rule, both times with disastrous results. The first was a poor old man from a village some days' journey from Mosul. He was poor and friendless, also blind with "cataract"; reluctantly I allowed myself to be influenced by his pathetic pleadings, and admitted him without any one to look after him. Prior to his admission he had been bitten on the calf of one leg by a dog, and complaining of pain from this wound, we dressed it with a simple boracic fomentation. Unfortunately this dressing was forgotten and left on the leg. The eye was in due course operated upon successfully, and the patient received the usual strict injunction to lie still for twenty-four hours. At the first dressing everything seemed all right; two days later I found to my sorrow that the eye had suppurated, and that there was no hope of saving the vision. The strictest inquiry was at once instituted, but for some time we could discover no clue as to how the eye had become infected; then the truth came out. It appeared that the second night after the operation the old man commenced to feel a slight pricking pain in the eye that had been operated upon (not an uncommon symptom after "cataract" extraction, with no bad significance as a rule). The pain seemed similar to that which he had felt in his leg, which had been relieved by the application of the boracic fomentation. The patient reasoned thus with himself: "It is night time, I had better not call for the doctor; but the medicine on my eye is evidently doing no good, while that put on my leg cured a similar pain to this at once, so I had better take off this bandage from my eye and replace it with the one on my leg"! This he had proceeded to do, and consequently lost his newly acquired sight.