child is a gentle, sensitive creature who takes to crying as his means of expressing hunger and pain; he does not want to be treated the way things are treated, and the attending physician must call on the virtue of patience to be able to understand his needs. Woman possesses enough patience to make it easy for her to hear the child's crying during examination and treatment without complaint or weariness.

Second — I am one of those who believe in prevention through guidance, health education, vac-cination, and continuous medical supervision; and I believe too that the best results of prevention are achieved for us if we begin prac-ticing it at the very outset of life.

2 — What is the attitude of Lebanese society toward the woman who specializes in pediatrics?

The difficulties I met in practicing the profession were easy to face, and were at no time insurmount-able. Nor do I think they differ in kind from the difficulties the male physician meets in pursuing the same work.

I can say that Lebanese society trusts woman's ability, and to this day I have not run into a mother who doubted my advice or my medical guidance merely because I am a woman. Perhaps that is the result of the positive tradition left us by the midwife, or the "hakima," who in times past played the role of deliverer and of family counselor at one and the same time.

For this reason I encourage women medical students to spe-cialize in children's diseases, and I consider that woman has a com-plementary mission in every walk of life; and the most prominent field of medicine in which the distinctive marks of this mission appear is the branch of pediatrics.

3 — What are the most widespread children's diseases in Lebanon?

Intestinal diseases such as diar-rhea and dysentery still hold first place. They harm the child's health in general, and they cause the greater part of the deaths among those under one year of age.

The chief causes leading to the spread of intestinal diseases in Lebanon may be summed up as follows:

First — the ignorance of our mothers, even the educated among them, of the principles of child feeding.

Second — the low level of public

health. We still have a long stage ahead of us before we overcome the flies and secure for Lebanese society in general water fit for drinking, sterilized milk, sanitary housing, and food sufficient in kind and in quantity.

Third — the lack of adequate health services, above all centers for the care of mother and child.

The costs of medical care in Lebanon are exorbitant, out of all proportion to the income of families of the middle and poor classes. The need of certain Lebanese regions for such