ows the tendency of many Chinese not to consult a
physician until the patient is at the point of death. Their utter lack of
knowledge of the simplest rules for the care of the sick, and the dreadful
surroundings in which so many of them live, produce, in those who are
brought to the doctor after long weeks of suffering, conditions which are
almost too terrible to describe.

The words of a fellow-missionary throw light on the difficult character of
Dr. Stone's work:

"Talk of missionary work! People at home don't know the meaning of
the word! Here is this plucky little woman in the midst of this
awful heat--I dare not go outside of a shaded room until after the
sun is down at night--treating anywhere from twenty to fifty
patients in the dispensary every day, and her charity ward filled
with the most trying, difficult, repulsive cases of suffering
humanity. Missionary work? Why you don't even _find_ such cases as
she has every day, in the hospitals of America. How the people live
as long as they do--how these poor little suffering children
survive until they get to the state they are in when brought to the
hospital, is more than I can understand."

Dr. Edward C. Perkins, who visited Dr. Stone for several days, lays similar
emphasis on the serious condition in which the doctor finds those who apply
to her for treatment. "The cases which came to the dispensary were sorely
in need of help. This was, I think, the invariable rule. Such cases they
were as do not often come to the observance of physicians in this country,
and some familiarity with the dispensaries of four of the large hospitals
in New York City, has almost failed to show such need as the little doctor
sees continually."

No physician in China can be a specialist. One of Dr. Stone's letters shows
the variety of diseases which she is called upon to treat. "Women come to
us almost dead; paralyzed, blind, and helpless.... We have in the isolation
wards, measles; and in the contagious rooms, locked up, leprosy; an insane
woman locked up in her room; typhoid, tuberculosis, paralyzed women and
children, ulcer cases such as you would never dream of, surgical cases of
all kinds, and internal cases too numerous to mention."

A letter from a Kiukiang missionary tells of one woman who came to the
hospital with "not a square inch of good flesh on her entire body." Fingers
and toes were so diseased as to be dropping off, and the