The Lebanese Red Cross pursues with all vigor its mission in the service of humanity, giving medical, material, and social assistance, despite the financial difficulties that stand in its way, relying on the generosity of benefactors and answering the call of duty; and it feels keenly the stifling crisis that is driving the middle and working classes into poverty and want.

The speaking figures show with all clarity the mighty work it accomplished in the first five months of the current year:

21,446 patients treated and relieved free of charge in all its dis-pensaries in Beirut, Tripoli, Zahle, and Rayak — 8,641 medicines given free of charge — 524 families given material relief — 900 kilos of steril-ized milk distributed to 137 children in the two branches of the infant nursing home in Beirut and Zahle.

At the Gemmayzeh dispensary (Beirut), which concerns itself espe-cially with children and infants, the number of those cared for reached 2,667. And 75 layettes for infants

were distributed to poor expectant mothers. At this dispensary the legal consultations numbered 53 and the examinations of workers 133.

As for the traveling dispen-saries, which made numerous tours through the regions far from the capital, they examined 825 patients and distributed medicines to them.

The workshop branch sewed 5,000 articles of clothing — smocks and infants' layettes — to be distributed in the coming year.

Recently a new dispensary was founded at Damour, a second at Rechmaya, and a dental clinic in Beirut.

The Lebanese Red Cross, which feels great responsibilities in the face of these straitened conditions, in which the number of the poor and the weak and the wretched grows day by day, calls upon all Lebanese men and women, at home and abroad, to support it materially and morally, that it may complete its mission and lighten some of the suffering in this beloved homeland.