bled his patients and customers
on the public streets of Persian towns, for the benefit of their healths,
when we pinned our pagan faith on Druidical incantations and mystic rites
and ceremonies; his Mussulman descendants were doing the same thing when
we at length arrived at the same stage of enlightenment, and the Persian
wielder of razor and tweezers to-day performs the same office as
belonging to his profession. From my vantage point on the bala-khana of
the Lasgird chapar station, I watch, with considerable interest, the
process of bleeding a goodly share of the male population of the village;
for it is spring-time, and in spring, every Persian, whether well or
unwell, considers the spilling of half a pint or so of blood very
necessary for the maintenance of health.

The village barber, with his arms bared, and the flowing, o'er-ample legs
of his Aradan-Lasgird pantaloons tucked up at his waist, like a
washerwoman's skirt, a bunch of raw cotton in lieu of lint under his left
arm, and his keen-edged razor, looks like a man who thoroughly realizes
and enjoys the importance of the office he is performing, as from the
bared arm or open mouth of one after the other of his neighbors he starts
the crimson stream. The candidates for the barber's claret-tapping
attentions bare their right arms to the shoulder, and bind for each other
a handkerchief or piece of something tightly above the elbow, and the
barber deftly slits a vein immediately below the hollow of the
elbow-joint, pressing out the vein he wishes to cut by a pressure of the
left thumb. The blood spurts out, the patient looks at the squirting
blood, and then surveys the onlookers with a "who-cares?--I-don't" sort of
a grin. He then squats down and watches it bleed about a half-pint,
occasionally working the elbow-joint to stimulate the flow. Half a pint
is considered about the correct quantity for an adult to lose at one
bleeding; the barber then binds on a small wad of cotton.

Now and then a customer gives the barber a trifling coin by way of
backsheesh, but the great majority give nothing. In a mere village like
Lasgird, these periodical blood-lettings by the barber are, no doubt,
regarded as being all in the family, rather than of professional services
for a money consideration. The communal spirit obtains to a great extent
in village life throughout both Asia Minor and Persia; nevertheless
backsheesh would be expected in Persia from those able to afford it.