'Your gifts support the pillars of our library and share in the treatment of our patients'... says this placard in the library
My sister reader... may your reading of this 'reportage' have awakened in the depths of your soul a surging feeling of enthusiasm and concern, and a desire to help these patients in the Dahr al-Bashiq sanatorium — the largest national humanitarian institution in Lebanon. Perhaps in your library there are some entertaining books you no longer need; hasten now to send them to the office of 'The Woman's Voice,' which in turn will take on the task of delivering them to our dear friends the patients.
How strong man is, at times! How strong, when he has believed in man and in the values of humanity! How strong, when he harnesses the powers of man in the service of man! In this beautiful patch of earth, in the early years of this century, people feared consumption! They isolated the sick man for fear of contagion, and left him without treatment for fear of scandal, to escape people's suspicions, their shunning of the family, and their flight from it. And there arose in our country a handful of people — a handful few in number, rich, strong in faith — individuals who believed in man, in the sanctity of man and in his right to life. They were: Doctors Bishara Mansi, Iskandar Baroudi,
and Salim Jalakh, and Messrs. Jirji Baz, Qustantin Khoury, Jirji Sursock, Salim Kassab, and As'ad Khairallah; and together they founded the Tuberculosis Health Refuge. They sought out the sick man and went to him in his home and in his isolation; they brought him treatment where he lay in his bed, and treated his family along with him for the delusions nesting in their minds. And in 1908 they felt that they must expand the work — they must build
a hospital! And on the hilltop of Dahr al-Bashiq they hewed the first stones. They built their dreams into a real edifice upon the rocks.
The laboratory, fitted with the most modern equipment