THE DOCTOR'S STANDING ORDERS.
1. Spitting near the doctor's house is strictly forbidden.
2. Those who are waiting must not talk to each other loudly.
3. Patients and their friends must bring with them food enough for one day, as they cannot all be treated early in the day.
4. Any one who spends the night on the station without the doctor's permission will be sent away without any medicine. (It happened not infrequently that patients from a distance crowded into the schoolboys' dormitory, turned them out, and took their places.)
5. All bottles and tin boxes in which medicines are given must be returned.
6. In the middle of the month, when the steamer has gone up the river, none but urgent cases can be seen till the steamer has gone down again, as the doctor is then writing to Europe to get more of his valuable medicines. (The steamer brings the mail from Europe about the middle of the month, and on its return takes our letters down to the coast.)
These six commandments are read out every day very carefully in the dialects of both the Galoas and the Pahouins, so that no long discussion can arise afterwards. Those present accompany each sentence with a nod, which indicates that they understand, and at the finish comes a request that the doctor's words shall be made known in all the villages, both on the river and on the lakes.
At 12.30 the assistant announces: "The doctor is going to have his lunch." More nods to show that they understand, and the patients scatter to eat their own bananas in the shade. At 2 p.m. we return, but at 6 p.m. there are often some who have not yet been seen, and they have to be put off till the next day. To treat them by lamplight cannot be thought of because of the mosquitoes and the risk of fever infection.