disease lurks in them; therefore we leave no part of the expectant mother's body unexamined, for the sake of the rising generation.
As for the pharmacy, it pleases me to say that a mother of four children, one of the licensed midwives, has been entrusted with the work there.
I stood before her, and she did not notice me, for she was wholly engrossed in preparing some medicine. For a mother such as she, perhaps her own child lay in a dangerous condition — she is female and mother at once; how beautiful this is.
And in the weighing room I saw another mother, herself a licensed midwife, cradling a child in the first weeks of his life to record his weight in his permanent report.
There are also the bureau, the three clinics, the teaching hall, the cinema hall, the rooms of the women doctors and the secretary's room, and then the general registers.
In every one of them I was astonished by the cleanliness and the perfection of order — which shows that wherever the female is found, there are beauty, perfection, and devotion, so that you almost feel something saying: it is woman who works, and none other, in every field.
A Constant Father
Here I felt that my visit had grown long, and I wished to end it with a single question put to Dr. Jallad, having seen the abundance of his labors. Behind the question I was aiming at something that had crossed my mind as I watched the many callers, most of them mothers. I said: Have you children? And I noticed that he understood my intent — my feeling that he had
not time enough to look after his own children. He said: Three, and... and I am at once their teacher in their lessons and their doctor.
A thought gleamed in his eyes, before which I felt my own shame, and it pointed to a deep meaning: I wish I could examine them while they sleep, and at every moment, that they may be worthy to build this dear homeland, and worthy of life. Then Dr. Jallad remembered a question I had put to him earlier, and said:
The medicines given by the institution and the foodstuffs are all free, and everything offered here — examinations, analyses, and all the rest — is free.
As for your question about the number of centers in Syria, it has not yet reached the figure I want for it, for we have founded centers in Aleppo, Latakia, Homs, and Deraa, besides, of course, the main center in Damascus. And I hope that in the near future we shall have a similar center in every Syrian town.
And concerning your last question, about the training course, I say:
It is the first of its kind in Syria; we established it in 1954, and it is making tangible progress.
An Appeal
There, then, is a glimpse of the life of this rising institution, a glimpse of the life of the women who work in it — with Dr. Ghassan al-Jallad at their head — and a glimpse of the activity of the working
woman in this tender atmosphere, the atmosphere of childhood and motherhood joined together.
And since I am one of the women of this society, I come forward in all sincerity, in the name of the many daughters of my sex whom the fates have denied the material and moral capacity to raise their children — I come forward in their name to thank all who work in this institution, hoping that the Ministry of Health will labor to develop it by every possible means and to spread it into every town and every corner of the land of Syria, that we may remain, as we have always been, in the vanguard of the constructive peoples and at their head.
Finally, I address my appeal to every Syrian mother: to draw ever more upon the experience of this institution and the experience of its energetic head, Dr. Ghassan al-Jallad.
Gripe Water
Happy tidings to the ladies
New quantities have arrived in Beirut
of the famous "Gripe" Water
and it is now on sale in all pharmacies