something which attacks rich and poor alike, high and low. The favorite wife of His Highness, Sultan Abdul Aziz ibn Saoud, ruler of Saoudi Arabia, was ill. In fact, she was very ill as she lay in the palace at Riadh, and the local Arabian hakeems, or doctors, had done all in their power without success. The king quickly dispatched messengers across the desert to summon the mission doctors from Bahrein. It is said throughout inland Arabia that next to the king, it would be difficult to name one man more popular than Dr. Louis P. Dame of the American Mission Hospital on the island of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf. On receiving the message from Riadh, the doctor and his associates started out at once and sped across the desert in the modern motor cars which the king had furnished for his guests. The rest of the story we shall hear in the words of Mr. G. D. Van Peursem, who was himself a member of the party:
In exchange for the liberality of Ibn Saoud, Dr. Dame, Mrs. Van Peursem and eleven assistants gave their time and services freely. Naturally the king and his household came first. . . . However, daily clinics were held for the public. Every forenoon except Sundays, two hundred and fifty patients were treated. Rich man, poor man, beggarman, women and children, everybody seemed to turn up at this daily clinic. ... To these masses some forty cases of medicines were distributed. One of the assistants was kept busy giving intramuscular and intravenous injections for the men alone. This indicates that venereal diseases have become all too common in Saoudi Arabia. Someone has said that unless this is checked, it will certainly decrease
