If an American couia be suddenly transferred from his home to the land of Persia, he would surely feel that history has turned back in its course and that he was contemporary with the grandchildren of Noah. "The land of the sacred Ganges, wreathed in poesy and rich in gods and temples, bred in the earliest ages a highly cultured people, who, even in hoary antiquity, had already made large strides in medicine, and attained a grade of scientific knowledge beyond which they have never since advanced."

To make you acquainted with medical science in Persia, I will give you a few of the prescriptions and describe the treatment we use. There are in Persia specialists as well as in America, so we will visit some of them.

In a warm, dry season you will find ten per cent. of the people are troubled with ophthalmia. There are only two good oculists in the city of Urmia, which has a population of over 100,000, and counting small towns around will be over 300,000 inhabitants. Now for one of the doctors: Mashadi Zabar Khanum, a lady oculist, her home as well as any other Persian home is constructed upon a plan of secrecy; no windows are visible from the street, but the interior is constructed of several courts with lovely gardens, shrubbery, and even luxuriant groves of fruit and shade trees, which are supplied with fountains of water, of all which one obtains not a slightest hint from the street. Now we enter the court, then we must wait until our turn comes, as there are already fifty or a hundred patients waiting for treatment. MashadyZabar-Khanum is seated near the fountain on a nice soft cushion, and each patient in turn lies down and puts his or her head on the doctor's left knee. The doctor has several folded papers containing a variety of medicines of her own make; she takes a little pinch of medicine and sprinkles the eyelids and in a few seconds he is up and another down.

Next is a lady with granulated eyelids. The doctor will put the lid between two round sticks of her own make also, and will roll them over and over until the desired effect is produced. Again, you will see a lady with inverted lids. The doctor will take hold of a portion of the loose skin of the lid and ties a section, 1-6 to 1-8 of an inch, between two sticks; the part becomes withered, and in a few days the shortness of the lid is produced.

Now then we will leave the court and make our way towards the home of Doctor Haroon, a leading surgeon and physician in that city. Every day there are over two or three hundred patients visit him; some may wait for days before they could have an opportunity to be attended, except in emergency. He has only three or four home-made knives, and uses no needles, does not make any difference how large the wound may be, not a stitch is taken, so all his wounds are healed by second intention (granulation). Now there comes a fellow with a large cut on his arm and suffering great pain. Doctor will tell him to go to the fountain and wash it clean, then he puts some medicine on it and then bandages it with a handkerchief, and tells him to call to-morrow. When next day he returns there may be pus formation, and as to treatment that will be the same. The result is, a large per cent. die. If you tell him his patient has died, well he will say it was the will of the Almighty to be so. (They believe in foreordination.)

Again, you will see a man with malarial fever taken to a Chaldian priest to be cured. The priest reads lots of ceremonies and ties a cotton string on the patient's wrist and tells him to call again if he does not get well. There comes another lady troubled with tuberculosis. To her the priest will write two prayers; one she has to hang on her neck and the other she has to put in water and rub over and over until the water is kind of black, then drink it.

His next patient is typhoid, and

There is another doctor called to see a patient, so he orders cabbage soup. In a few days he calls again, and to his surprise finds the patient up and well. Now he has found a wonderful remedy, so he is going to use it. the prescription he gives is cabbage soup, five bowls a day. He calls again next day and finds the patient dead. Well, he says, I don't see why some medicine kills one while it cures another.

Again, you will see people stricken with paralysis taken to the temples and the priest prays for them and lights an extra candle, and tells them they must give lots of sacrifices.

Some prescriptions of our famous doctors: Treatment for gastritis R. Strong vinegar, pints III. Sig. One pint every six hours.

In pneumonia, they use cupping on the neck and head, bleeding first days and often branding. In jaundice, frightening, mak

ing the patient go around the fireplace seven times a day, and bleeding. In case of measles, smallpox, etc., keep them warm, tie up their hands to prevent scratching. In diphtheria, press the tonsils hard with index finger once every evening for three or four days and keep neck warm. In case of hemorrhage, if large, dip the part in boiling oil or water; if small, cover the part with either spider webb or a fine dust.

There are no medical schools in Persia, so medicine must be learned in other ways. Now let me give you a few facts. A man with a sore arm goes to a physician and remains under treatment for five or six weeks, at the end of which time he begins the practice of medicine. A woman goes to a doctor and remains under treatment two or three weeks and comes back a full-fledged M. D. But as a rule the profession of a man has descended to him from his ancestors for many hundred years, and people are known through their profession. As Shahbaz, the carpenter; Agajan, the merchant; Sahag, the goldsmith, etc.

Now then, a few words about the Shrines which cure certain ailments. Some are as old as sixteen and seventeen centuries, and most of them are built on the mountains, as Mar-Shalluda, MarGeryagus. Mar-Sargis, from where I have received my name, is on the mountain of Sier, about fifteen miles west of Oroomiah' City, the home of the author. After climbing rough mountains we will reach a little village; on the west side of the village, on the mountain side, is the shrine. It was built A. D. 600, in honor of St. Sargis, who cast out devils in his lifetime, so all kinds of insane people are brought here. The shrine is a large building with stone walls, roof and floor, and is divided in two apartments; each has but one window two feet high and one wide, and one door which leads to the first apartment is about five feet high and three feet wide. The home for the insane is situated in the second room on the northwest corner. A narrow door leads downstairs. In a crouching position you may be able to enter there; the room is dark; there are no windows, and no light is brought into this room. The highest point is six feet, the widest about six and a half feet. It may be a comfortable grave for the dead, but a poor hospital for the living. Here are brought insane people from ali over the country, and after leaving the insane in this place they roll a large stone against the door so there is no way of escape. He will be left there entirely alone two or three days, at the end

of which time they either become cured or die. They imagine while the insane are confined in this place, the saint comes and touches them, curing them. In case they die (as about 98 per cent. do), they say the saint must have been out visiting some of his other shrines.

This is the only kind of an insane asylum in Persia, and there are over 1500 towns, only twelve of which have educated physicians. The cities of Mashad, Shisaz, Tabri, Ispahan and Tehran each has over 250,000 inhabitants; only about twenty educated physicians. Patients are brought for hundreds of miles distant, the greater part of whom die on the journey from privation and hardships, and are buried by the wayside. A few reach doctors in time to be helped; their joy and gratitude no language can express, and they go away with wonderful accounts. There is no spot more in need of medicine than Persia with her 10,000,000 people.

As I have completed my course in medicine, I hope soon to return and do good to my fellow countrymen in the practice of the healing art.

At present Interne at Protestant Hospital, Columbus, Ohio.

HONORED BY YALE.-Yale University at its recent bicentennial celebration conferred the honorary degree of LL.D. upon the following physicians (Journal A. M. A.): Dr. John Shaw Billings, director of the New York Public Library; Dr. David White Findlay, professor of the practice of medicine in Aberdeen University; Dr. William Osler, of Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Ira Remsen, president of Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Wilhelm Waldeyer, professor of anatomy in the University of Berlin.