BUSY DAYS AND A BURDENED HEART
The hours at the hospital were daily from early morning, frequently from six or seven o’clock, till noon. During the latter part of the afternoon he answered calls in various parts of the city. By these calls he came into the homes of the people and became better acquainted with them than he could have done under ordinary circumstances. He gives what he calls a fair specimen of the missionary physician’s life in Siam when his hands are full:
“When I awaked in the morning found two sets of servants waiting for me—one from Prince Chao Fah Noi, who had sent his boat for me to go up to his palace just as soon as I could finish my breakfast; another from Chao Arim, the King’s brother, wishing me to come over and see some one in his palace very sick. My first duty of course was to attend to little George, whom I found still living, though much the same. This occupied the time before breakfast. After a hasty meal, stepped into the sampan sent for me (the servants still waiting to take me across the river to Chao Arim’s)—having dismissed the Prince’s servants with a note requesting to be excused. On the other shore entered gates of the city wall.... While I was waiting for the Prince to be notified of my arrival, servants gathered around; examined my clothing, one wished me to take off my hat to see if my head was shaved, another admired my watch—the ticking pleased the children mightily. Some strong ammonia I had pleased them very much. A young man with a flaming long jacket of red silk (no shirt or vest above his waist cloth) came out; all servants squatted on the ground. This young Prince conducted me up a rude ladder to the bamboo dwelling of the sick man.
“Returning, invited to see the great man himself. The audience halls of these great men are after all rather well-adapted to the climate; immense rooms, lofty ceilings, furniture of matting, etc. Returning to my place, found a boatman from the Moorish Madras merchant’s awaiting me. Accompanied the Hindoo, who had been sent for me, in his open boat with umbrella over my head; the sun, however, very hot, though this is our cold season. Some distance down the river landed at the Nackodah’s commercial establishment, and found myself in the midst of quite a number of intelligent looking and polite Mahommedan Hindoo merchants and clerks, with their picturesque costume; the turban of twisted shawl and robes of thin white muslin, and sandals. Was received very courteously, conducted to a bamboo house nearby. The patient, a fine looking man, swarthy, with aquiline nose and mustache, lay on a mat bed behind a screen.... And now the voice of Dit, a servant of Chao Fah Noi, was heard; he had followed on after me, not finding me at home—the Prince being very desirous of seeing me. So I stepped into the handsome boat he had sent, and was soon at the palace. Here received with a smile of welcome.... Wished me to shew him how to make chlorine gas. Succeeded well. Gave him a piece of fluorspar and directions for etching glass. Left several jars of chlorine. His boat in readiness to take me back.... In the evening a call from Prince Ammaruk, in his priestly yellow robes, several priests with him.”
All these interesting scenes and varieties of experience, however, did not lighten the burden of the heart. When a patient suffered pain and inflammation after an operation, he cries out:
“How can I go forward in a profession where I may inflict suffering. If it was only injury to property and not to life and health and senses! Alas, how hard a destiny, how could I choose this profession!”
On a Saturday night he sighs:
“And so ends another week during which mercies have been ever changing, ever new. It has been a week of labors for Christ ... and yet, though my poor head is ready to ache with the task of deciding, judging, prescribing, I find a sweet kind of weariness that comes from serving Jesus Christ.”
Such a tender heart and sympathetic nature suffered most where it could help the least. The obstetrical customs of the country in particular caused the doctor both distress and irritation on account of the lamentable ignorance displayed and of the needless sufferings caused.