Galen and Avicenna are still regarded as the leading masters of the profession, and their treatises are the only ones that are studied. Diseases are divided into hot and cold. A cold remedy is applied to a hot disease, and a hot remedy to a cold one. The doctors bleed patients suffering from malarial fever. They keep small-pox endemic by their curious remedies. Silver armlets containing texts out of the Kurán are worn as preservatives of health. The saints and _estakhharehs_ are sometimes the only doctors. “The One who sends fever takes it away ... Khodá rahím ast (God is merciful).... If He wants me to remain here He will cure me.... He is the best doctor.” Offerings in money or in sweet-meats are given to the poor for the patient’s recovery. The money is placed under the pillow every night, and is distributed every morning among the needy. The patient, despite the stifling atmosphere, is persuaded to believe in a speedy recovery, everybody telling him that he will soon be quite _kushdell_ or cheerful. But when the end draws near a priest is summoned in haste, and the dying man, if he has no just cause of complaint against a child or against his wife, says not a word as to the distribution of his property, having full confidence that the divine law will be religiously followed. He instructs the priest as to the rites to be observed at his funeral and the offerings to be paid for the peace of his soul. He may command his sons to obey their mother and to respect their sisters. If he has no issue he may settle his property on a school, a mosque, a saint, or a water cistern. The corpse must not remain more than twenty-four hours in the house. The hammámí, or bath-keeper, now enters the house in the capacity of an undertaker. He places the body on a _korsi_, that is, on a raised wooden platform in the middle of the room; a copy of the Kurán and a decanter of rose-water are set down near the head; and a cashmere shawl is laid over the remains. For a month or forty days after burial a _ghari_ or hired priest keeps watch over the grave, praying for the soul’s peace of the newly-departed, and reading the Kurán aloud. On the night of the interment the percussion of the grave, the fesharé-ghabre, is supposed to take place. The priest must keep on reciting a certain passage of the Kurán, called Ayatu’l-Kúrsí or the Verse of the Throne, in order to extend the space and prevent the pressure. Then come Monker and Nakír--those livid-faced angels of death--and question the deceased concerning his faith. If his answers be satisfactory, ’Alí will cause him to be refreshed by the air of Paradise; if not, he will be beaten on the temples with iron maces.