When the medical missionary starts work he may be puzzled by the very common request that he will give the second medicine first. It appears that the people think, with how much truth I cannot say, that their doctors give first a medicine to make the patient worse and then one to make him better. Perhaps that was what the devoted old grandmother was thinking of, who had brought her poor little granddaughter in from a village many miles away, very, very ill with rheumatic fever. She called in the English doctor, and got her medicine from the dispensary, but when the doctor called next day, she said she had not given the child any, because she remembered she had never asked if it would do her good and so she was afraid to try it. It must surely have been in the minds of the friends of one patient who came to the missionary, and said their friend was worse every time she took her medicine, and they wanted some more, it was doing her so much good. When you are very ill, Mother keeps you very quiet and does not let you see visitors, but when a little Persian is very ill all the neighbours crowd in to see him, and the more ill he is the more people come in. And they do not tread on tiptoe and talk in a whisper, they all talk quite loud out and smoke _qaliāns_ and drink tea, and make noise enough to give anyone in good health a headache, much more a sick child. One day I was called in to see a child who was dangerously ill. Instead of showing me into her room, the mother, together with a variety of aunts, sisters, and other relations, escorted me to their receiving-room. I asked for the sick child, and was told I should see her after tea, which meant at least half an hour’s delay. As the account they had given of her sounded very bad, I said I could not wait, that it was not our custom to think of tea-drinking and entertainment when our patients were perhaps dying. With great difficulty I managed to persuade them to take me to the poor little girl, whom they had left alone while they all came to have tea and sweets with me. She was, as they had said, very ill, her recovery was very doubtful, yet as soon as we left the room, and had sent for the medicine, they were all eager to entertain me, and I do not think anyone would have stayed with the child if I had not insisted, and they were all as gay and lively as if they had had no one dangerously ill in the next room. The Persians are very hospitable and like to put their best before a visitor, and they consider it very necessary to provide something nice for the doctor. Some Persian doctors send word beforehand what refreshments they would like got ready.