and are too poor to buy.

Of some of the difficulties encountered Dr. Vera Singhe will tell in her
own words:

"The work of the midwife is carried out in the filthiest parts of the
city among the lowest of the city's population, both day and night, in
sun and rain ... A patient whose 'address' was registered at the
Triplicane Centre was searched for by a nurse on duty in the locality of
the 'address' given, and could not be found. Much disappointed, the
nurse was returning to the centre, when to her bewilderment she found
that her patient had been delivered in a broken cart."

Of some of the actual cases where mothers have been attended by
untrained barber women, the details are too revolting to publish.
Imagine the worst you can, and then be sure that your imagination has
altogether missed the mark.

Of the reaction upon ignorance and superstition Dr. Vera Singhe says,
"In Triplicane dispensary as many as sixty cords around waists and arms
and variously shaped and sized pieces of leather which had been tied in
much trust and confidence to an innocent sufferer with the hope of
obtaining recovery have been in a single day removed by the mothers
themselves on seeing that our treatment was more effective than the
talisman."

Weighing, feeding, bathing, prevention of disease, simple
remedies--knowledge of all these goes out from the health centres to the
unsanitary homes of crowded city streets. So far one woman's influence
penetrates.

In a Hospital.

It was on a train journey up-country from Madras, some twelve years ago,
that I first met Dr. Paru. She and I shared the long seat of the small
second-class compartment, and in that close neighborliness I soon fell
to wondering. From her dress I knew her to be a Hindu, yet her jewels
were few and inconspicuous. She was most evidently of good family, yet
she was traveling unattended.

Presently we fell into some casual talk, the inconsequent remarks
common to chance acquaintance the world over. More intimate conversation
followed, and before the end of the short journey together, I knew who
Miss Paru was. The oldest daughter of a liberal Hindu lawyer on the
Malabar Coast, she was performing the astounding feat of taking a
medical course at the Men's Government College in Madras, while
systematically breaking her caste by living at the Y.W.C.A. I almost
gasped with astonishment. "But what do your relatives say?" I asked.
"Oh," she replied, "my father is the head o