Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/444

 —the gift of the chief of Cheung Mai to the missionary-physician, who is consulted by the royal family in sickness.

Through the gate that leads from the public road to Dr. Cheek's dispensary a steady stream of Laos men, women and children, rich and poor, passes to and fro. "His name is a synonym," says a traveler[A] who recently visited Cheung Mai, "of all that is good and kind throughout the district, he having relieved the sufferings and saved the lives of hundreds of natives, and thereby earned their warm gratitude. Adjoining his house he has erected a long bamboo shed, subdivided into a number of small apartments, which serve as the wards of a hospital. Here he has performed hundreds of operations with such skill and such success that even the superstitious Laotians come from long distances to be cured by him when suffering from painful diseases or severe wounds. The chiefs and princes often send for him when their reliance upon the superstitious rites of the native 'faculty' begins to fail them, though, in such cases, his advice has often been only asked when the patients have been in extremis. Two or three years ago he saved the life of the chief's wife when all the drugs and incantations of several native medicos had been called into requisition in vain.

"Dr. Cheek has also established a boat-build-*

[Footnote A: Carl Bock.]