Prince Aziz Ullah.
I returned to the Hospital, but in the afternoon was sent for again by His Highness. He asked me to examine and prescribe for his infant son, Prince Aziz Ullah, who, the Hakims informed him, was suffering from disease of the ear. I went off to the Harem Serai at once, and presently the child was brought out into the waiting-room. He was carried in the arms of an old man. The child was about two years old, and was the son of one of the minor ladies of the Harem. He was a pretty little fellow, with large dark eyes and a fair skin. I looked at him as he was being brought out, and saw a dusky livid appearance about the lips; and that the nostrils worked at each breath.
“A bad ear!” I thought. “If that is not lungs, I am an Afghan!”
I put my ear on his back, and the bubbling and crackling of the air as it was sucked through the inflamed bronchial tubes was loud enough for even a Hakim to hear. I asked how long he had been like that. Twenty days! He was suffering from broncho-pneumonia following measles. The ear was a trivial matter.
Perwana Khan was suffering, the Hakim said, from colic. I found he had a stone in the kidney.
The same day I received a letter from Prince Habibullah asking me to attend Sirdar Ressùl Khan, the Amîr’s cousin, son of Sirdar Usuf, who is the son of Amîr Dôst Mahomed. Sirdar Ressùl had a crippled arm: he had injured it some time before while out duck shooting.
I was told that the liniment relieved the Amîr’s pain at once; but I do not know—it may have been merely Oriental politeness that led them to say so. I did not see His Highness for some days, as he was the guest of the Dabier-ul-Mulk.
Visit to Prince Mahomed Omer.
A day or two afterwards, as I had not seen the little Prince, Mahomed Omer, since my illness, I wrote to the Sultana for permission to visit him.