A better position than Amadia for getting unusual knowledge as to the ways of life and thought in this remote land could hardly be imagined; particularly when, as was the case with us, medical practice was added to educational work. This was done partly out of philanthropy, partly because nothing is so efficient as dosing to take away prejudice! Weird complaints came to us for doctoring, as will readily be understood; and possibly the treatment they received would have been considered even weirder from a real doctor's point of view.[144] Thus the village idiot came up one day to beg for a cure. He knew that he was mad, and he also knew the reason; namely that long ago an unscrupulous foe had put a donkey's brains into his soup, and he had eaten them unwittingly, and had naturally gone crazy. We thought of setting imagination to cure what imagination had created, by solemnly tying our friend down, making a small wound on his stomach, and then exhibiting some scrap of raw meat to him as the donkey's brain, safely extracted. We have known of similar cases cured by precisely that method elsewhere; particularly a girl in Mosul who was persuaded that she had swallowed a lizard, which was eating her up internally. She fully intended to die of it; but recovered perfectly on being chloroformed and being shown, on "coming to" again, a small cut on her own person, and a lizard in spirits! However, the patient in this case refused to submit to the operation, and perhaps it was as well; for one is rather playing with fire in executing such a scheme. On another occasion, a Kurd came to one of our European staff, with a request to have a tooth extracted. The Frank, who had served some apprenticeship at that art, did his office deftly; and the Kurd, filled with gratitude, offered two mejids (seven shillings) as a fee. This was refused, as no fees were taken; and the patient was even more astonished. However, he was a Mussulman gentleman, and to receive a benefit without making return for it was unthinkable; hence if his next proposal was bizarre, at least the kindness was genuine. "Look here, _Effendim_, you are a Christian, are you not? Well, when I get to Paradise, I shall have seventy houris. You will not have any where you are going; and I think I may spare you--two!" An interesting corollary to the above proposition would seem to be that the market value of a houri is 3/6 sterling, plus compound interest on that sum for say twenty years, which seems cheap.