Upon entering a sick chamber the physician finds the air almost suffocating, and must conduct his examination by the dim light of a small wax taper, for in the construction of a Laos house the principal object to be attained seems to be the utter exclusion of light, there being no doors or windows except the necessary entrance. The examination concluded, the physician gives his directions concerning the management of the patient and goes his way, with the assurance that his instructions will be regarded by the friends of the patient as of some importance or as utterly insignificant, just according to their own views of the case. Dispensary work is equally unsatisfactory. The friends of the patients come to the dispensary and describe as well as they can the most obvious symptoms, and from the information obtained in this exceedingly unsatisfactory way an opinion as to the nature of the patient’s ailment must be arrived at and a prescription made. The results of such a method could not be otherwise than unsatisfactory even with intelligent nursing and a faithful observance of directions. As to the nursing of the sick among the Laos, it is sufficient to state that it is such as to seriously compromise any favorable tendencies, and the directions given by the physician are usually subject to any amendments that may be suggested by the inclinations of the patient or the opinions of nurses or friends. If supposed to be seriously ill, the patient is visited by a throng of relatives, friends and acquaintances, and is disturbed by a ceaseless hum of voices; elderly ladies entertain one another at the bedside of the patient with the fullest accounts of the nature, course, duration and proper treatment of similar cases which they have witnessed, some of them relating the circumstances of the marvelous cures effected by some skillful doctor while others dwell upon the melancholy import of the symptoms. Having concluded his daily routine of dispensary work, the foreign doctor makes his second visit to his patient. Arrived at the house, he probably finds it filled with the relatives and friends of the patient, all devoutly attending a reading from the Buddhist scriptures by a priest or a number of priests, according to the means of the patient; long prayers and chants are rehearsed, sacred water is sprinkled over the patient, offerings of flowers and wax tapers are made to the household spirits. After this ceremony, which lasts for several hours, the patient passes into the hands of a native doctor. CHAPTER XXIX. _A TOUR IN THE LAOS COUNTRY._