Iran -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile literature; Missions -- Iran -- Juvenile literature
Sometimes this deters the very poor from calling in even the mission
doctor, who, they know, would treat them free. They cannot even provide
tea and sugar. It was a great relief to more than one poor person, when
it was discovered that the mission ladies were fond of boiled turnips,
for a plate of turnips was within the reach of the poorest, costing
only about a halfpenny. The news spread, and several sick people were
able at once to have a doctor.
But it is in surgery that one sees the Persian doctor at his worst.
Here comes little Husain with his head plastered up with mud; on
removing the mud we find a broken skull and a large wound in a foul
condition. Next comes little Sakīneh with both hands burnt; the burns
are smeared with sticky white of egg covered over with leaves; it will
take days of proper dressing to get the wounds clean. But she is not so
badly off as Rubābeh, whose burn has been dressed with camphorated oil,
and is so inflamed that she screams and cries the whole time.
A more fortunate child was the little girl who was scalded nearly all
over, but not deeply, and who looked like a little nigger with the
_ink_ they had put on. She got well very quickly. It is like Indian
ink, and seems to be the best of the remedies the Persians use for
burns.
With broken bones the Persian doctors are not very successful either.
Little Hasan, aged four, fell and broke both arms. The Persian doctor
as usual tied them up with splints that were too small to be any real
use, but he tried to make up for that by tying the bandages very tight,
and poor little Hasan had both arms partly destroyed. How proud he was
when, after some weeks at the C.M.S. hospital, he was able to carry an
English doll clasped to his heart with the two poor bandaged stumps.
There was some truth in what one doctor said, that more than half the
cases that came into the hospital had come there in consequence of the
Persian doctors’ treatment. The remedy is generally worse than the
disease.
There are exceptions, and I have met Persian doctors, who not only had
real knowledge of medical treatment, but had some of the true doctor’s
spirit of pity and self-sacrifice. Especially I would mention the
brave Persian doctor who stayed at his post in Shiraz in the cholera
epidemic of 1904, and fought that terrible disease instead of yielding
to the panic that had seized his fellow countrymen.
It is evident, however, that there is a great and crying need for
dispensaries and hospitals in Persia. So in the north the American
Presbyterians, and in the south the Church Missionary Society, have
founded them in a number of towns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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