Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/620

584 and injured, and of thereby alleviating to some extent the enormous amount of human suffering at present so frequently needlessly aggravated by the ignorance of those unskilled persons with whom the patient is first brought in contact.

It is an undoubted fact, well enough known to medical men, that the results of such ignorance are often most deplorable. By rough handling and bad management on the part of the attendants, however well-intentioned, a simple fracture may be converted into a compound, or even a complicated fracture. Again, how many thousands of lives have been lost merely from want of knowledge as to various extemporary methods of arresting bleeding, or as to the immediate treatment of the apparently drowned, or otherwise suffocated! It would be easy to multiply instances where knowledge of this kind is invaluable, but a glance at the syllabus drawn up by the medical committee is sufficient to shew how well adapted the course of instruction is to meet the requirements of the cases of sudden illness and injury ordinarily met with in every-day life.

The “British hospice and Ophthalmic Dispensary,” at Jerusalem, which has been established by the langue for the alleviation of the terrible sufferings caused in that country by diseases of the eye, and the ignorance prevalent as to their proper treatment. The sultan has aided in this good work by granting a firman for a site for the hospital. He has since redeemed this promise by a pecuniary gift of £900 Turkish, the langue having themselves purchased a site and building, and having started the operations of the dispensary. Crowds of afflicted Syrians flock thither for relief, and as the work is strictly on a non-sectarian basis no opposition is encountered. Of all the charitable operations now being carried on by the langue there is none that promises to effect so much real good as this, or which so closely copies the objects of the original founders of the Order.