A Worthy Use for Discarded Surgical Instruments

To the Editor  —The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is carrying on extensive medical work in Turkey, India, China, Africa and the islands of the sea. About fifty thoroughly equipped physicians are in charge of this work, and last year nearly 400,000 patients were treated in the hospitals and dispensaries connected with the work. Nearly all the hospitals are so remote from other modern medical facilities that the physicians in charge are compelled to be experts in almost every department of medicine and surgery, and each surgeon must have all the instruments required for the performance of the operations which he undertakes.As an illustration of the operations performed, the physician in charge of the hospital at Cesarea, Asia Minor, reports 91 abdominal operations and over 800 other operations performed in ten months by himself. According to a report just received from Northern Syria, Turkey, covering a period