The nurses and attendants in the women’s ward seemed to be much interested in their charges and to develop a real affection for them. There are no bonds in the whole institution. The severe cases are put to bed. As soon as their condition will warrant it they are set to work at something that will keep them busy, laundering or helping in various ways about the institution, always with ample supervision. One bright-faced patient possessed with the notion that the devil was in her nose made that member the object of her constant thought, keeping it always covered. We saw a large, powerfully-made man standing behind the iron grating of one of the men’s windows. He was an alcoholic case who was sent away from the hospital at one time apparently cured, but fell into the old ways again and now is hopeless, incurable. Some of the patients come to the hospital in a most wretched state of filth. Some come loaded with the chains that the ignorant country people have put on them. Some have been isolated in caves and scantily fed, some have been beaten. Some have been made to drink water in which written texts of the Ḳurân have been soaked. Many are the ways with which the superstitious natives would treat these unfortunates. Sometimes the insane are looked upon with superstitious awe as of an order other than ordinary human beings and to be invoked. At other times the people are said to beat them in order to drive out the demon, but more often, according to their own saying, they let them pretty much alone. “For,” say they, “God has touched him; that is enough; leave him alone.”[103] All through the country this unconscious fraternity lives its life apart from men. Only their bodies are in contact with the world of reality. They are fed or beaten, caged or prayed to, in turn. We saw one of these unfortunates who had been groveling in a fit on the street in Jerusalem near the Jaffa Gate. He had a small cord drawn through a fleshy place in his abdomen, by working which back and forth well-meaning spectators had caused considerable blood to flow, thinking to relieve him. We have seen them wandering in the streets of Damascus with the freedom of the city, all making way for them; and well they might; we did, too, for I’ve never seen human beings more unutterably filthy. In the village of ‛Ayn ‛Arîk there was a dumb maniac who went about naked.[104] He was credited with being a wily, or holy man. Families having a sick person among them would sometimes send him presents of roast stuffed fowls and secure from the wily some of his hairs, which they would burn near the patient, hoping thereby to effect a cure. ----- ----- The leprous generally congregate outside the cities and follow the trade of begging. Hospitals and asylums are provided for them, but many of them prefer the freedom which puts them obnoxiously in the way of those who can be teased for alms.