AFGHAN HOSPITALS.
The first attendance at an Afghan Hospital. Its arrangement. The
drugs and instruments. The Patients. An Interpreter presents
himself. Dispensers. Marvellous recovery of the Page boy. Its
effect. Buildings near the Hospital. The Durbar Hall and Guest
House. The Sherpûr Military Hospital. Lord Roberts and the Sherpûr
Cantonment. Adventure with an Afghan soldier. Arrangement of the
In-patient Hospital. Diet of Patients. Attendance of Hakims.
Storekeepers and their ways.
[Sidenote: The Out-patient Hospital.]
The next day Mr. Pyne set to work to get the pieces of machinery
removed from their cases and put together. Followed by a sergeant
and a couple of soldiers of the guard he bustled about vigorously,
issuing rapid orders in a mixture of English and broken Hindustani, and
Persian, which compound language his workmen soon learnt to understand.
I had received no orders as to attending patients, but hearing
from Pyne that there was a City Hospital I rode off with my guard
to see what it was like. I found the Hospital was situated in the
row of Government buildings erected outside the Erg Palace on the
wide poplar-fringed road running between the city and the Sherpur
cantonment, which was made by the British and called by them “The Old
Mall.” These buildings skirt the gardens outside the Erg Palace on the
south and east. Like most of the buildings put up under the direction
of the Amîr, they are better built than most of the other houses in
Kabul. Though only of one story they are very lofty, with thick walls,
and have glazed windows. The buildings do not open into the street but
into the gardens, access to which is obtained by the big gateway on the
east side, where we left our horses when we visited the Prince, and by
a similar gateway on the south.
In the storeroom of the Dispensary I found on the shelves of glazed
cupboards a great many cases of old-fashioned surgical instruments,
some of which were marked “Hon. East India Co.,” and on other shelves
a large collection of European drugs in their bottles, jars, and
parcels. The name of each drug was written in Persian as well as in
English characters. These had been ordered from time to time by certain
Hindustani Hospital assistants who were in the service of the Amîr,
and who had had charge of the Out-patient Hospital and the European
drug stores. The Hospital assistants had not used any great amount of
judgment in their orders, nor had they considered expense in the least.
I found great quantities of patent medicines warranted to cure every
disease under the sun; and of the newer and more expensive drugs of
which so much is expected and so little is known. The old tried friends
of the Medical Profession, whose cost is reasonable and whose action
is known, such as quinine, ipecacuanha, carbonate of ammonia, Epsom
salts, were conspicuous by their absence. I enquired what plan had been
adopted by the Hindustanis when they were making out their orders,
and learnt that they got hold of the price list of some enterprising
vendor which had found its way to Kabul through India, and ticking
off any drugs or patent mixtures that seemed to promise an easy road
to success in treatment, they ordered great quantities of these,
regardless of cost and before they had tested them.
The stores were in charge of a Hindustani, who had obtained a medical
qualification in Lahore, and who had been in the British service. He
showed me a medal, and was reported to be in receipt of a small pension
from the Government, though how he received it while in Kabul I never
heard.
I reached the Hospital about nine o’clock in the morning, and found
myself confronted by some eighty sick Afghans who had heard of the
arrival of a “Feringhi doctor,” and were all eager to be cured by him.
In the time when Lord Roberts occupied Kabul the regimental surgeons
had done good work among the Afghans.
A guard, with fixed bayonet, stood at the door to keep off the crush;
he did not use the bayonet, but he used a stick that he had with some
vigour.
[Sidenote: The First Patient.]
Every patient who had a weapon, and most Afghans wear one of some kind,
was disarmed before he entered the room. I had no interpreter, and had
been advised by Mr. Pyne not to learn Persian; so that when the first
patient was admitted I was in somewhat of a difficulty. I had seen
in a Persian grammar that the word “Dard” meant _pain_, so that when
the first man came up I said, “Dard?” putting a note of interrogation
after it. The patient looked blankly at me. I thought he must be
intellectually very dull, and I repeated my word, but with no better
result. Not knowing quite what to say next, I examined him with the
stethoscope.
He was greatly astonished, and shrank back somewhat suspiciously when I
placed it against his chest. However, when he found no evil resulted,
he allowed me to proceed. I could not find anything the matter with
him, and was again at a standstill.
This seemed very unsatisfactory; when to my great relief, a tall young
man, in a turban and a brown frock-shaped coat, stepped forward and
addressed me in imperfect English. I found he was an Armenian Christian
who had been educated in a Missionary boarding school in India, but
he had been so long in Kabul that he had nearly forgotten English. He
afterwards became my interpreter, and grew very fluent, but at first I
had to learn _his_ English before I could understand him; it was quite
different from anybody else’s. However--about the patient--I said, “Ask
this man if he has any pain.” And then I found that my word “Dard”
ought to have been pronounced more like “Dŭrrŭd.” I tried “Dŭrrŭd” on
them afterwards, but either they didn’t expect me to know Persian, or
else there ought to have been some context to my word, for they looked
just as blankly at me as when I said “Dard.” The ordinary Afghan is a
very slow-witted person. I found the patient had no pain, and I said,
“Tell him to put out his tongue.”
The patient appeared surprised, and looked somewhat doubtfully at me. I
suppose he thought I was jesting in making such a request. However, he
put out his tongue: it was quite healthy. I said,
“There is nothing the matter with him;” but the Armenian said,
“Sir, a little you stop--_I_ find out.” He said something in Persian,
and the man nodded. What words the Armenian used to enable me to
understand what was wrong I do not remember, but I found out eventually
that the patient wanted a tonic, for all he suffered from was an
inability to manage his many wives. I said, “Tell the man his complaint
does not exist in my country; I have no medicines for it.”
There were, I should think, a dozen who came the first day for the
same reason. Of other diseases, malarial fevers, eye cases, venereal
diseases, coughs and dyspepsia were the commonest. I was not able to
finish attending to all the patients in the morning, and returned in
the afternoon, finding them still waiting. As the days went by, the
number of patients increased to such an extent, that it finally became
no small matter to attend to them all, and do my own dispensing. There
were Hindustani dispensers, but I was not quite prepared to trust them,
till I knew them better.
[Sidenote: Miraculous Recovery of the Page Boy.]
One day a lad, one of the Court pages, was brought: he was suffering
from jaundice. I put the suitable medicine in a bottle, placed it on
the table, then turned to examine another patient, mixed his medicine,
and put the bottle by the side of the first one. I went on till I
had about a dozen bottles ready, then I ordered them to be filled
with water, and gave them out. The patients took their medicine and
progressed satisfactorily: the Page boy, in particular, rapidly
improved. I was naturally pleased and said so to the Armenian. I
thought he looked rather strangely at me, and he said--
“Truly God works for the Sir!”
I wondered rather that he should be so impressive; but not for some
months after did I know why he was so. Then he told me. It seemed that
after I had mixed the Page boy’s medicine and turned away to the second
patient, one of the dispensers seeing the bottle on the table ready,
as he thought, for use and not quite clean, washed it out and replaced
it. It was then filled with water and the boy rapidly became well.
The dispenser had not dared to say what he had done, lest I should be
angry. There was great wonder and awe at the hospital over that case,
and my reputation as a healer of the sick spread rapidly.
“If the Feringhi,” they said, “gives a pinch of dust (jalap powder) or
only water, the sick became well!”
[Sidenote: The Durbar Hall and Guest House.]
In the Palace gardens outside the moat, and about a hundred yards from
the out-patient hospital, I saw a large white building with pillared
verandah and corrugated iron roof. This was the “Salaam Khana” or
Hall of Audience. It is a long high hall, with twelve lofty windows
on each side draped with English curtains: two rows of white pillars
support the ceiling, which is decorated in colours with stencilled
and lacquered plates of thin brass. The floor is covered with English
carpets, and when, as is frequently the case, a dinner is given by
His Highness to the chief officers of his army, long tables occupy
the aisles, and each guest is accommodated with a cane-seated wooden
arm-chair. During a banquet or festival, the hall is lit in the
evening by two big “arc” electric lamps, the dynamo of which is
worked by a portable engine, which is brought from the workshop for
the occasion. The building lies east and west, and is entered at the
eastern extremity by a big doorway and portico. The western extremity
is entered through a large vestibule with portico and steps. Here the
building is carried up another story, and this part of the Salaam Khana
constitutes the Amîr’s Guest house.
On the ground floor are the great hall, the vestibule or entrance
hall which opens into the Palace gardens, and three smaller rooms. A
stone staircase with wooden balustrades leads to the upper floor. Here
there is in the centre a large pavilion, the Guest House, lighted by
many large double windows, which open on to the covered balcony or
terrace on the roof of the lower rooms. The Amîr and, sometimes, Prince
Habibullah, are accustomed to spend a month or two in this house,
living in the upper pavilion, or in one of the lower rooms.
A few days after my first appearance at the dispensary, I heard
there was a military “In-patient” hospital situated in the Sherpur
cantonment, which lies to the north of the town about a mile and a-half
away.
I determined to visit it, and one afternoon, after finishing at the
City dispensary, we started along the Old Mall which leads from the
town, past the Erg Palace to the cantonment.
We passed first the Salaam Khana, and then, further on, at the
extremity of the Palace gardens, I saw a small monument about twenty
feet high. It was square at the base and carried upward like the spire
of a church. On the square pediment was an inscription in Persian. This
monument I learnt was erected by His Highness to the memory of those
soldiers who fell in the last war against the British.
On the other side of the Old Mall, commencing opposite the Palace and
extending as far as the monument, is a row of one storied buildings.
These open not on to the road, but on the other side into vegetable
gardens and fields at the back. This row of buildings which turns a
corner opposite the monument and extends down a road running east to
the Kabul river, the Amîr has built as a barrack for the soldiers of
his body guard. About four feet from the doors of this row of buildings
is a narrow stream of running water, artificially made and used, after
the Afghan custom, both for ablutionary and for drinking purposes, as
well as for the irrigation of the vegetable gardens.
[Sidenote: The Sherpur Cantonment.]
Proceeding on our way we approached the lofty battlemented walls
surrounding the Sherpur cantonment. This oblong enclosure which lies
nearly east and west a mile and a-half due north of the city, is a
mile and a-half along its front, nearly three-quarters of a mile along
either end, and backs upon two low hills about three hundred feet high,
the Bemaru heights, at the east base of which, within the enclosure,
lies the Bemaru village. The hills protect the north side: the other
three sides are protected by the high walls, which are complete except
for half the length of the east extremity just by the Bemaru village.
It was this cantonment, it will be remembered, that was held by the
British at the time when Lord Roberts occupied Kabul during the second
Afghan war.
The Afghans had planned a sudden night attack in which their whole
force was to move suddenly at a given signal upon the cantonment. As
Lord Roberts’ force was exceedingly small, considering the great extent
of the cantonment, it was thought by the Afghans that an easy victory
would result. The signal was to be the sudden lighting of a beacon on
the Asmai mountain. But there are never wanting those among the Afghans
who, for a sufficient bribe, will reveal anything, and the British
were ready when the attack came. The rush was met by a continuous and
deadly fire, and after strenuous but vain efforts to gain an entry, the
Afghans retired, leaving great numbers of their comrades dead on the
field.
The gate we entered was protected outside by a semicircular curtain.
Built along the inner side of the wall were buildings one story high,
with a massive pillared colonnade or verandah and flat roof. There were
wood-faced, clay-beaten steps at intervals leading to the roof, so that
it was possible for troops defending the cantonment to take their stand
on the roof and fire through the loopholes.
Just inside the gate was a bazaar of small shops, where fruit,
vegetables, and bread were for sale; and soldiers in every style of
dress, Turkoman, Kabuli, Hazara, were grouped about. Some were seated
on the ground playing cards, some smoking the chillim or hubble-bubble,
others digging in little vegetable or flower-gardens. These were
created with great pains around irregularly arranged huts which formed
the north side of the street leading along by the colonnade. These
huts and the rooms under the colonnade were used as barracks. The
soldiers seemed to stare with more curiosity than the townspeople had
shown, and as we rode along towards the hospital one suddenly stepped
forward and seized my bridle. I thought it was a piece of insolence,
and raised my riding-whip to cut him across the face, when it occurred
to me that perhaps it would be as well not to risk a close acquaintance
with the ready knife of an incensed Afghan. My guard seized the man and
hustled him out of the way with many loud words, to which he replied
vigorously. Not understanding Persian, and an interpreter not being
with me, I could not enquire what it was all about, so I rode on. All
the centre of the cantonment was a huge open gravelled space, and here
troops were drilling. The words of command were in Afghani or Pushtu,
not Persian, but the titles of the officers were moulded upon English
titles: Sergeant was pronounced Surgeon; Captain, Kiftan; General,
Jinral; and there was Brigadier and Brigadier-Jinral.
The hospital was in an enclosed garden within the cantonment, and was
entered by low but heavy double gates. A series of rooms was built
along the inner side of the walls of the garden in the usual Afghan
style. There was no connection between the rooms except by a verandah,
and there was no upper story. Each room was about eight feet by ten,
and as none of them had windows, but were lighted simply by the door
that opened on to the verandah, they were nearly dark.
In the garden were a few trees, and in the centre a square sunk tank
for water: this, however, was empty. There was a cook house or kitchen,
with its coppers and ovens heated by charcoal, where the cook baked
the bread and prepared the diets for the patients: Pilau (rice and
meat), kabob (small squares of meat skewered on a stick and grilled
over charcoal), shôrbar, or broth, and shôla, which is rice boiled
and moistened with broth. There were two dispensaries, one containing
native drugs and one a few European drugs. There were, of course, no
female nurses: each sick soldier was looked after by a comrade.
[Sidenote: Storekeepers and their Ways.]
The Hakim on his daily round wrote on a slip of paper the date and the
name, diet and medicine of the patient he prescribed for. This was
handed to the attendant of each patient, whose duty it was to procure
the medicine from the dispensary and the food from the cook-house. I
never heard of an attendant eating the food intended for a patient. One
hakim, the cook and dispenser lived in the hospital. The slips of paper
were taken to the mirza, or clerk, who copied the daily diets on to one
paper and the medicines on another. The papers were then put away in
the stores. No daily totals were taken, so that if fraud were suspected
on the part of a storekeeper, dispenser, or cook, and the Amîr ordered
a rendering or auditing of accounts, the matter took a year, a year
and a-half, or two years before it was completed. However, as I found
later, the order in Afghanistan to “render an account” is usually
synonymous with “fine, imprisonment, or death.”
The next morning at the out-patient hospital when the Armenian
interpreter appeared, I told him of the soldier seizing my bridle in
Sherpur, and asked him to enquire what the man wanted. He seemed rather
startled when I told him, and at once turned to the sergeant of the
guard to enquire about it. It was nothing after all, simply the man,
guessing I was the Feringhi doctor, wanted me to see a sick comrade.
They apologized for him, saying he was not a Kabuli but an uncouth
“hillman” who knew no better. However, an order from Prince Habibullah
arrived in the afternoon that I was not to attend at Sherpur till he
had communicated with His Highness the Amîr.
[Illustration]