PRACTICE IN A FOWLHOUSE 
33 
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 
