Medical work in Turkey is probably nearer self-support than that of any other missionary country except Japan. The people are willing so far as able to pay for medicines received and for services rendered. Wealthy officials often make a handsome present to the missionary physician treating them, thus making it possible to treat many poor without pay. The hospital at Mardin, for instance, receives in fees and in payment for medicines enough to meet all expenses except the salary of the American physician in charge. The hospital of Aintab receives little money from the Board. Medical missions in Turkey are less hampered by officialism and hindered by opposition than any other form of missionary work. Physicians are more generally welcomed and their benefits more widely appreciated than anything else the missionaries do. While the other departments cannot be and ought not to be curtailed, much less abandoned, in view of all the conditions that prevail there with the constant scourges of pestilential diseases and the recurrence of violence and massacre in different parts of the country, there is an unlimited field for the operations of the Christian missionary physician who commends the gospel which he preaches to all with whom he comes in contact. At the same time, this work, compared with the extent of its influence, costs perhaps less than any other form of purely missionary service. Missionary physicians, their medical schools, hospitals, dispensaries, and practise among the people have been a mighty force not only for alleviating suffering, but for breaking down the superstitions of all classes of people. The Arabs, the Koords, the Turks, as well as other Mohammedan races, have found their belief in _kismet_, or fate, greatly shaken by the practises of men who seemed successfully to set themselves against the will of God. They have seen the scourge of cholera stayed in its ravages by the application of modern scientific methods, and diseases which were regarded as almost universally fatal become little feared, and they are compelled to inquire if, after all, “whatever is, is ordained by Allah.” Perhaps the medical work of the missionaries in Turkey has accomplished more in breaking down that benumbing belief in fatalism among the Mohammedans than all other phases of mission work together. XX. STANDING OF MISSIONARIES