Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/566

Rh dispensary. The fearful epidemic grew every day more and more serious and caused a great havoc among the people. The number of patients attending Vidyasagar's dispensary daily rose by leaps and bounds, as here they were supplied with food and pice, besides free medicine.. Latterly, the number of patients rose so high, that Ganga Narayan asked his principal to be permitted to give Cinchona instead of pure Quinine, as the latter was much more costly than the former. But Vidyasagar did not approve of the plan. He said that the lives of the rich and the poor were equally valuable, and should be taken care of equally. He insisted on the use of Quinine, however costly it might be. He looked after the poor sufferers from hut to hut, and when he saw that the diseased was too feeble to walk to the dispensary, he made the medical officer attend the patient at his own hut, and he himself carried the medicine for him. He thus saved numbers of poor people from imminent death, who, but for his kind care and charities, would certainly have died.

We have said before, that Pyari Chand Mitra and our hero were intimate friends. On the former's death, the latter treated his family with the same tenderness and affection. Pyari Chand's first son, Babu Khetra Nath Mitra is at present a Munsiff, and his youngest son, Avinas Chandra Mitra, is Serishtadar of the Judge's Court at Burdwan, His son-in-law, Babu Giris Chandra