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A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

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DOCTORS HOLIDAY
IN IRAN

BY

ROSALIE SLAUGHTER MORTON, M.D.

Author of "A Woman Surgeon "

FOREWORD BY

SURGEON-GENERAL HUGH S, GUMMING
(RETIRED)

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

NEW YORK. AND LONDON
1940

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The author gratefully acknowledges her indebted-
ness to "The Pageant of Persia/' by Henry Filmer
(Bobbs-Merrill Company-iggG) for much valuable
source material Mr. Filmer's book was particularly
helpful in the preparation of Chapter VI, 'The
Cities-and Today/' Chapter X, "Along the Roads,"
Chapter XII, "An Architectural Journey Through
the Ages," Chapter XIII, "Religious and Spiritual
Values/' and Chapter XVIII, "The Unveiled
Woman/'

TO

YOUTH THE WORLD OVER, WHO CHOSE FROM THE
PAST THE FINEST FOUNDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE,
AND WHO WILL BUILD THEREON A GLORIOUS ERA

FOREWORD

This book of Dr. Morton's is a most opportune
and valuable contribution, to the bibliography of
Iran. The home of the Peacock Throne has always
been, at least to the American public, the land of
romance and mystery the home of poets singing in
Persian gardens to the accompaniment of bulbul
birds and tinkling fountains. Now we find in Dr.
Morton's intimate and authentic analysis a new
social and national dawn breaking over this hoary
civilization. It is stimulating to know that Persia
has again become Iran, still beautiful in form, but
suddenly purposeful in content. This is a meta-
morphosis such as we have been seeing in Turkey
under the magic wand of Kemal Pasha, only in Iran
there has been no clap of thunder, no blare of
trumpets. Smoothly Oriental in texture as always,
the Iranian national life is gradually, but very defi-
nitely, altering its course to conform with the world-
wide social revolution, without, however, losing that
pungent tang of the East with which history has
always associated the name of Persia.

We are fortunate in that the old-new Iran is here
interpreted to us by a physician who has both un-
usual ability to observe and the judgment to evalu-
ate such observations in the light of acquired knowl-
edge and experience. Dr. Morton had been unusu-
ally successful in the field of clinical medicine,

viil FOREWORD

which has taught her close, personal analysis. This
she has applied, in her vacations from private prac-
tice, in the broader field of international public
health and the study of medico-sociological condi-
tions in Mexico, South Africa, Australia, and Ice-
land; these have prepared her for the more cliflicult
task of studying the changes taking place In Iran.

Her charming and Instructive writings of her
observations in those widely scattered and diverse
regions naturally teach us to anticipate both plea-
sure and profit in this report upon her observations
In the fascinating land known to us as Persia,

Through her own personality and Introduction
by mutual friends to personages of importance, she
was fortunate in meeting and securing the assis-
tance ofpersons in Iran most competent to give
her access to places and Information, and to assist
her in drawing proper conclusions during her visit
to that country, Interesting both historically and
because of its rapid progress in social changes and
public health,

HUGH S. GUMMING
Surgeon-General of the IL S. A* (retired),
Director-General of the Pan-A meriean
Sanitary Bureau* Washington, /), <7*

resident^ Health Section* League of
'Nations,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER y AGB

FOREWORD vii

I. THE LIFTED VEIL .

II. THE ROAD TO TEHERAN .

III. ANCIENT PERSIA ....

IV. MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER
V. THE VILLAGESAND YESTERDAY

VI, THE CITIESAND TODAY

VII. THE PEOPLE AND TOMORROW

VIII. PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS .

i

6

M
28

4B
67

90
102

IX. LIFE IN THE BAZAARS 120

X. ALONG THE ROADS 131

XI. ART IN DAILY LIVING 146

XII. AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY THROUGH THE

AGES 167

XIII. RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES . . .188

XIV. THE DOCTOR'S PART m PROGRESS . . . 206

XV, MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS , . .223

XVI. THE MISSIONS

246

XVII. THE VEILED WOMAN 270

XVIIL THE UNVEILED WOMAN
XIX. THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION *
XX. THE FUTURE EAST AND WEST .

292
313
3*9

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

The Shrine of Mahun, "One of the Most Beautiful
Examples of the Handiwork of Man" Frontispiece

Stairway Leading to the Audience Hall of the Em-
perors at Persepolis 16

Reliefs on the Apadana Stairway at Persepolis . . 17

Shah Riza Pahlavi, Progressive Ruler of Iran . . 32

Grown Prince Shahpur Mohammed Riza Pahlavi . 32

One of the Gardens that Inspired the Classic Poets of

Iran 33

A Typical Street in Teheran 80

Palace and Public Buildings in Teheran . . , 81

Medicine Market of Herbs, Powders and Potions . 128

A Metal Worker Making Samovars 128

Woman Smoking Water Pipe 129

Children at a Peep Show 129

Sharistan Bridge 144

One of Iran's Pisturesque Winding Roads . . -144

Yeyd-i-Khast, where a Man's House is also His Fortress 145

Mosque at Nishapur Containing the Tomb of Omar

Khayyam 160

"The Good Samaritan,'* a Miniature by Mussafar . 161

Men's Building, American Hospital, Hamadan . . 224

Boy Bringing Blind Father to Dispensary at Turskiz 224

Patients Waiting to Sec an Iranian Doctor . . . 225

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

WlhV%"'i\ \i^^- ,' ; '' ? ' >: A '

THE LIFTED VEIL

A FEW years ago, in writing the final page of
my autobiography, and looking ahead to a
new chapter of my life, I concluded with the words:
"I am going to Persia, or Iran as it is now called,
to observe the amazing social changes there; elec-
trifying modernity alongside age-old traditions, peo-
ple living next to one another, illustrating every
significant change during the past two thousand
years. I am anxious to meet Mohammedan women
and see how they, with the help of progressive men,
are making a new concept of life.* 1

"'Evolution in reverse" in Europe made me eager
to see something less depressing than the headlines
of the daily papers. There comes a time in the lives
of all men and women when the cares and conten-
tions of life make us wish to turn from them to the
peaceful home of our childhood, where breadth of
soul gave understanding. Perplexed by many half-
developed experiments in living, defeated by find-
ing no end to the paths of thought which wind and
wind, I longed to go back to tribal origins, to try
to find how the essentials in that old-time living
have woven through the patterns of modernity;
where we lost the way and evolved expedients to
cover our bewilderment; where we found green pas-

2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

tures and new caravan routes to link our endeavors
with others traveling the road of life. So 1 turned
restfully toward Asia, that vast continent of origins

the cradle o all religions, the nursery of all nations.

My major motive was to find answers to age-old
questions; if I could solve one, even in part, such
as the basic relation of women to evolution, i would
feel that, added to the studies of many other men
and women, it might lead toward the solution of a
racial problem deep in the thought and heart of
humanity; for all our best efforts are directed
toward the development of the next and succeeding
generations on a higher level than the preceding.

In Turkey, Syria, Iran, and also in Palestine, the
old symbols, superstitions, and isolation are slipping
away and giving place to modern science and soci-
ology* Change! Progress! . * . these are the new
watchwords of the Islamic world I This was the
challenge which called me to pass by Europe, with
its political confusions and military barbarisms, to
rest from the struggling antagonisms of the com-
paratively new continent* by finding peace in the
maturer decisions of Asia. In a sense, I went back
3000 years to find the world of tomorrow*

The unveiling of women has caught the world's
Imagination, but this is only one part of the un-
veiling of Asia. Archeological research lifts the
veils of earth. The introduction of genera! educa-
tion lifts from peasant minds the veil of
Modern medicine removes the veil of The

veil of spiritual bondage is lifted. Supersti-

tion is losing Its hold*

THE LIFTED VEIL 3

The Mohammedan countries are shaking them-
selves free o the shackles of the past. Age-old
traditions are being replaced by modern standards
of living. Dedicated human effort is transforming
a nation.

If Iran, by idealism and force of will, is making
great progress, what is our weakness, that we, with
a background of open-mindedness and opportunity,
are, by comparison, standing still? What is their
directness and independence of thought which
makes the emancipation of women a keynote of
progress, while the psychology of Italian and Ger-
man dictators is relegating women to their primi-
tive use, the production of warriors? What held
Iran back so long? How did she fall from her
ancient high estate? What has made it possible for
her now to forge so amazingly ahead? Is it dedica-
tion of purpose alone?

In seeking the answer to these problems, I re-
ceived much assistance from Zoroastrians and Mo-
hammedans, as well as from Iranian Christians, all of
whom spoke English, and from physicians educated
in England and the United States, familiar with
many aspects of Iran's past and present. There were
fresh experiences every hour. A great revolutionary
change was taking place; a thousand years were at
times reflected in a day; at others, a thousand years
were static. Independently, an Asiatic country is
bridging the centuries which were required for simi-
lar development in other lands, endeavoring to
choose for itself those things which are good and" to
avoid those which have proved detrimental

4 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

This metamorphosis in human living seemed to
me almost as rapid and immediate as an electric
shock. It is similar to, yet differs from, what is tak-
ing place in other Mohammedan countries of the
Near and Middle East, as their minds open to West-
ern civilization and international undertakings.

Iran is as large as France, Germany, and Italy
combined. I motored north, south, east, and west,
the length and half the breadth of Iran. Travers-
ing towering mountains and the great plateau, I
mingled with the people in their homes and on their
highways, ate and drank with them, saw diem at
work and at worship, looked upon their architecture,
caught a glimpse of their history, and shared with
them their hopes and visions for the future.

I was deeply interested in the changing position
of women, since the most striking contrast between
the East and West lies in their status, in national
economy and in social life. I discovered that fair*
ness to women, valuable as all its developments are,
may be regarded mainly from the standpoint of in-
creased happiness to men. Important an this is, I
found also kaleidoscopic changes in education, reli-
gion, social and civic building* in all their many
ramifications*

How could it be done so quickly* and on what
economic: framework could its security rest?

To look back upon those months in Persia , or
Iran as we must call it now, is like baking upon a
tapestry, woven with multi-colored threads, of desert
tribes, of* }x k a$mts and princes, of and forest*
mountain and plain*

THE LIFTED VEIL 5

From the ashes of empire, Iran has risen like a
phoenix, a young country, for all its vast age, built
by a young people, rising in the midst of internal
difficulties and external hostilities. And the build-
ing is being done in an atmosphere of buoyancy and
optimism and hope, in striking contrast to the crush-
ing despair and spirit of defeatism which has marked
too many of our western peoples since the World
War. It is odd that out of the ancient and weary
East should come a lesson in modernism and an ex-
ample of youth rebuilding a world. But it is chal-
lenging to remember that what they have done, we
can do.

II

THE ROAD TO TEHERAN

ALEXANDER THE GREAT conquered the in-

jtJLhabitants of an extensive district, Pars, or Fats,
of which Persepolis was the capital, in 334 B.C. His
messengers of victory reported in Greece that Par-
sis had been won. Other records indicate that con*
tacts with Kurope as early as rj$t> E.G. in the reign
of Cyrus, who, before he became rider of a vast em-
pire, was King of Pars led to the adoption of the
name Persia.

In March, 1935, the Shah Rixa Pahlavi decreed
that Persia should be known as Iran* Persia was
called Airya in the Zend-Avesta and Ariana in an
inscription of the time of Darius (521-485 B.C.).
These two words are modifications of Arya, mean-
ing noble or venerable. The country became known
as Persia through an old error.

The name Persia has, in our minds, long been as*
sociatecl with the history* literatures and art of a
valorous and highly nth ami people. But in Europe
and Asia many age-old names have, in lute years,
been changed to denote progressnone more out-
standingly so than the name Iran, which h typified
by stimulating reforms and new ideas which are
already bearing wholesome fruit*

German planes used to fly to the principal

6

THE ROAD TO TEHERAN 7

in Iran; they had made a record for safety, prompt-
ness, and other sterling virtues. But the Shah Pah-
lavi had decided that he would have no more air
oversight of his country, so I had to choose between
going by caravan, by bus, or by automobile. The
last seemed the most practical, but Oriental drivers
are capricious, and consequently the agents from
whom one engages a seat are equally uncertain. I
wished to start at daybreak from Baghdad, Iraq, in
order to see as much as possible of the country before
the noon halt, but no agency would promise a start
earlier than two P.M. The hour was incredible.
The heat was intense, and the thermometer would
register 122 degrees Fahrenheit from eleven to four.
When I pressed the agent for an honest statement, he
admitted that we probably would not get off before
five. Not yet being fully under the spell of the East,
I felt that a matter of three hours still had value;
finally, with baggage strapped in place, we left soon
after six o'clock.

The front seat was fairly comfortable and gave
me the advantage of a wide view. I soon forgot that
there was anything in the world except space and me.
Quickly we sped northeast, out into the flat, tawny
desert, and before long we were riding through
stark, straight, skeletal mountains. They were not
really high, but they were so close on each side of our
tiny car that they seemed gigantic they rose nakedly,
unexpectedly, out of the desert.

The narrow road was uneven and beaten hard in
the sand, for this was the caravan route where camels
for centuries had walked, one behind the other, to

8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Samarkand, to China, to India, and to other marts of
Asia. Our wheels tipped up, first on one side, then
on the other, as we dashed zigzagging along.

Long lonely miles stretched out ahead. We passed
animals and men who had settled down for the night.
A small, flickering light showed where their encamp-
ment was. We passed the sleepers as though we
skirted a city of the dead. On we went, the bare,
strong angles of the mountains reminding Hie of pic-
tures that I had seen of Tibet; an effect intensified
by long weeks spent on the level ocean.

The wheels were silent as they turned on the sand;
the night was still. The day had been warm and
the driver began to nod. The car stopped and
awakened him. We had lost our way, an easy thing
to do, for once off the route, the desert was trackless.
Fortunately, we came upon another Bedouin camp.
A long way off in the moonlight we saw their tents,
and as we drew nearer, we found that around them
many white-robed figures were lying, asleep. Our
driver called a desert salutation to them, and as we
approached, several of the men arose and came to
meet us.

The grace of their floating garments and of their
dignity was delightful. In quiet, full tones they in-
quired our need, and with the blessing of Allah
directed us how we might regain our lost way with
a star as our guide.

Eventually we reached Khanikin, The sudden
arrival at a prosaic railroad station was jarring. This
was the end of the line which starts at Skutari, op-
posite Istanbul, and passes through Asia Minor to

THE ROAD TO TEHERAN 9

Mosul, built from the stone of ancient Nineveh, on
the edge of the mound which covers the yet-to-be-
resurrected remains of that once great city. The
station, therefore, had more adventurous charm than
appeared at first. Oddly enough, it played a part in
the World War, for it was the basis of the German
slogan, "From Berlin to Baghdad/'

The following day we passed the Iraq border and
sped along the road to Hamadan. As night came on,
the driver grew irritable. He insisted on closing all
the windows, in order, he explained, "to keep out
the mountain demons !" I felt helpless and impris-
oned as we sped around hairpin curves and teetered
on precipices, careening uncertainly on the edge of
doom, for only a ledge supported the narrow road
as it twisted and turned between cliffs above and
depths below.

The driver began to sing in harsh, monotonous
tones; then he said he must smoke, and a faint smell
of opium pervaded the air. Soon his head drooped.
His body swayed forward and backward; he jerked
himself up. We were going through a mountain
pass which was more than 8600 feet high.

After two days and nights of rough traveling over
the perilous roads, across two ranges of mountains
through constantly changing altitudes, my tired eyes
were rejoiced by the sight of a mirage on the desert,
far, far off to the left. Lines of lovely trees seemed
to be standing on the edge of, and also in, a calm,
blue lake. Just as I was filled with the wonder of
it, the illusion faded, but in the midst of fatigue my
soul yearned to hold the rest and peace it afforded.

10 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

I reached out my hands, only to have them filled
with the blowing desert sands.

The driver, to whom mirages were customary
sights, nodded his head toward the unendingly arid
stretch, and remarked calmly, "It Is the Caspian
Sea/' It had seemed to be rolling on a beach before
me, while actually it was two hundred miles away
on the other side of the Mazanderan Mountains. No
wonder these people are superstitious; that mirage
was enough to make me believe in any vision!

Approaching Kazvin and passing over the quaint,
romanesque bridge, through the beautiful turreted,
tiled, triple-arched gate of the city, I aw through it
trees at whose feet real water flowed, but I did not
believe it until I felt the refreshing breeze, which
was cool because it had touched the water.

When we finally reached the top of the hill which
overlooks Teheran, temperamental appreciation of
its beauty caused the driver to take both his hands
off the wheel and shout enthusiastically, "This, my
city! It is the most beautiful city in the world!" As
we were rounding a curve, I quickly steadied the
wheel.

At dusk we reached the outskirts; gradually on the
misty horizon there emerged minarets, mosques, and
modern buildings. It is an amazing experience to
come out of the desert into a beautiful city just as
twilight is falling, and the myriad electric lights
make it look like fairyland awaiting you.

Because hospitals inevitably attract doctors, I set
out for the American Hospital. As we drove into
the wide ambulance space before the sweeping steps

THE ROAD TO TEHERAN 11

of the entrance, several nurses came running down
to meet the car, hoping that I was the superintendent
o nurses they had long expected,

My legs, from the strain of keeping my balance
in a jolting car, had long felt like tassels Indeed, at
one stage I had doubted whether I would ever be
able to stand up again! Surely they could not sup-
port me. But when the car stopped, I shook my
feet and ankles and straightened my knees, at first
tentatively, then effectively. A nurse suggested that
I come to a room which she said I would find com-
fortable.

It was their best room, on a corner, and had win-
dows on two sides. I walked into an oven those
windows had admitted heat all day and, as the sun
had only recently set, no cooling had taken place.
I sat limply in a rocking chair and looked at the bed.
It was one of those statuesque, high beds which are
a great convenience for a nurse, but as it was almost
breast-high/ the thought of climbing into it assumed
the proportions of an achievement.

I tried to scramble up; I drew up several pieces
of furniture, but they all slipped from under me at
the moment when I was trying to get my knee on top
of that hopelessly high mattress. It became an evil
dream in which everything slides away when accom-
plishment is within grasp. The bed was on rollers.
Time and again it eluded me. My determination,
usually an asset, had grown feeble I returned to the
chair.

After a time the nurse came back and suggested
that I go to bed. As soon as she closed the door, I

12 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

decided that I was too tired to undress and that I
would lie down as I was.

Never did I have such a struggle, even when as a
child I tried getting into my grandmother's four-
poster. That bed had become a demon a dragon
to be conquered. I decided that I could not die more
valiantly than in using the remnant of my well-nigh
exhausted strength to climb on top of it. But the
floor was of cement and the chair slipped again.
Eventually, however, the struggle ended in my lying
quietly upon the hard, smooth, white surface of that
bed, and I murmured to myself, "Thank God for
all His mercies; I hope I don't have to move for a
week."

The more often this idea recurred to my mind,
the firmer it became. I thought of all the recumbent
figures I had seen on sarcophagi and of how peace-
ful they looked. I felt a rapidly developing kinship
with them.

Rested and refreshed the next day, 1 found a note
from the American Minister and his wife, asking if
I would dine with them that evening. There I met
the archeologists from the Universities of Chicago
and Pennsylvania, who were resurrecting the life of
ancient Iran. I forgot that I had been so nearly deaft
at the same hour the night before. Life moved like
a kaleidoscope beautiful glass and silver, china, de :
licious food served with elegance. After dinner we
sat in a spacious living-room, where the myriad soft
colors in rugs, the sheen on silver bowls and fantas-
tic boxes wove such spells I could scarcely listen
connectedly to the conversation.

THE ROAD TO TEHERAN 13

After a little while it was suggested that we go to
the garden. It was a park, with a grove of trees at
the far end; cascades punctuated the glistening
stream which ran through the center. There was
the perfume of shrubs and myriads of flowers. Night-
ingales were singing; the moon hung low, shone
through the forest of tree trunks, and then threw a
halo of light around their spreading branches. The
place was enchanted. When leaving, the Minister,
who knew friends of mine in America, said, "Will
you not be our guest while you are in Teheran?"

This courtesy was followed by a number of de-
lightful social experiences. I met the diplomatic
world at a garden party at the British Legation, and
lunched with some of its most interesting members
at the Japanese Legation. I was interested in meet-
ing the Iranian officials, nearly all of whom held
representative positions in other countries. They
and their wives helped me to start a somewhat in-
tensive study of things Iranian, and enabled me to
learn much in a short time, by getting under sur-
faces.

Ill

ANCIENT PERSIA

THERE are seven routes that lead to Iran. Two
are from the north through Russia: the first
across the Caucasus Mountains, through Georgia and
Julfa; the other by way of Baku and the Caspian
Sea. From the south one may enter Iran at Bushire
on the Persian Gulf. From the east, either by cara-
van through Tibet and Afghanistan, or from India
through Baluchistan. Sixth, by way of Asia Minor,
through Turkey; or, seventh, by the one I chose,
across Syria, North Arabia, and Mesopotamia, now
called Iraq. In the troubled history of Iran, those
who followed the routes were too often invaders:
hostile Greeks, Arabs, Seljuks, Mongols, English, and
Russians.

In the days of its great empire, all the present
avenues of approach, except what is now Russia,
were the domain of Cyrus, Darius, and their suc-
cessors. From Egypt to the Indus River, tribute was
paid to the mighty Emperor in magnificent Persep-
olis, where today may be seen on the ceremonial
stair, as clear-cut as if hewn yesterday, bas-reliefs of
the emissaries of all the Kings of the then known
world, come to lay their homage at the feet of the
powerful Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

14

ANCIENT PERSIA 15

What part did geography play in all this? Iran
is set on a great plateau, 6000 feet in the air, 875
miles from east to west, 700 from north to south;
ribbed and encircled by mountains which are rugged
and stern, with an individuality all their own, made
personal by lights and shadows never seen on tree-
clad heights. Shale, worn down by the elements and
winds, swirls around their feet; when sunset makes
each grain of sand glitter, this seems to spread a
golden carpet around the mountains as they stand
majestically looking across the ages.

Iran is bordered on the north by the glistening
Caspian Sea. The fertile green land between this and
the northern mountain barrier is as beautiful as the
Vale of Kashmir, and is the source of most of the
food for those who dwell on the plateau. The pro-
ductive shores of the Persian Gulf below the south-
ern wall of mountains furnish wealth in dates for
export and home consumption. On the west the
mountains divide it from Mesopotamia and the
valley of the Euphrates; on the east, mountains bor-
der inaccessible Afghanistan and Baluchistan.

The country we now call Iran achieved a glory
of empire five centuries before the birth of Christ.
In the late fifth millennium before Christ its people
were producing pottery which, after its long sleep,
has recently been rediscovered. In the middle of the
sixth century B.C., Cyrus the Great amalgamated the
powerful local tribes and established by conquest a
kingdom which reached from the Oxus and the Indus
rivers to the Mediterranean shores, and a dynasty
which survived until Alexander the Great conquered

i6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Darius III. Then, although the Greek warrior ad-
mitted that his generalship met with abler opposition
in Iran than anywhere else in Asia, the great days of
the Achaemenid Dynasty came to an end. The in-
vaders ruthlessly destroyed not only the armies of
Iran, but the civilian population as well. First they
lived off them, then killed their cattle, burned the
grain, and utterly destroyed all their villages^ Fam-
ine followed starvation; illness and death, grief and
discouragement spread. As a result the country fell
into a decadence, and this was taken advantage of by
barbaric and violent Parthian chieftains who, with
iron hands, ruled the remnant of the Iranians and
those Greeks who remained in the country, crushing
the arts and all hopes for a better future.

It took a hundred years to rebuild the man power
of the country. Then the people prepared to rid
themselves of bigoted and ignorant rulers, and to
reestablish their glory. Ardashir, an Iranian, in
A.D. 226, was their choice of a leader. He repelled
the Parthians and founded the dynasty of the Sasa-
nians. Under him Iran regained Asiatic position al-
most equal to that of the time of the Darius empire.
Once more it became a powerful and prosperous
kingdom. Its borders were extended in Mesopo-
tamia on one side, in Central Asia on the other, north
across the Caucasus Mountains, and also into remote
parts of Arabia. Art flourished again. The religion
of Zoroaster overthrew the Parthian idols and re-
gained its pristine purity.

More *than three hundred and fifty years passed.
Then, in the seventh century, Khosru Parvis, the

Pfiilpp^^
: 5 '' . / t^ v'

Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of (VuVfi^w

RELIEFS ON THE APADANA STAIRWAY, PERSEPOLIS

Part of the tribute procession: Row i, the Aradiosians; Row 2, the Ciiliduns;
Row 3, tlie Cuppudodan.s,

ANCIENT PERSIA 17

king, received a highly dramatic message from
Mecca, bidding him to acknowledge a certain Mo-
hammed as the Prophet of God. The proud Sasanian
smiled contemptuously and proceeded with his plans
to attack the Roman capital at Byzantium, unaware
that before many years had passed the fanatical fol-
lowers of the Prophet would overwhelm his empire
by force, and that a day would come when Sultan
Mohammed would ride on horseback into the church
of St. Sophia and trample there those who were at
prayer!

In that year of 636 the Arabs offered them little
choice; the conquered Iranians must accept the
Koran or death. The independence of her religion
and of her people was temporarily crushed; although
eventually Iran absorbed her conquerors into her
national life. At the court of the Caliph, who was
the representative in Baghdad of the Mohammedan
rulers, Iranian costumes became the fashion, for Iran
was the most important part of the Islamic world.
Her deputy governors ruled many principalities.
Some of these were men of such vision that they
made it possible in the eleventh and twelfth cen-
turies for literature, through the writings of Firdausi
and Biruni, and for science under Avicenna, to rise
to great heights.

Then came, in 1221, the catastrophic invasion of
Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes. They swept
savagely over Iran. Little is left of the resplendent
period of the Mongol dynasty. The greatest monu-
ments and the greatest cities have a life in the East
almost as precarious as that of man. The most im-

i8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

portant building of this period that remains intact
today is the Mausoleum of Oljeitii at Sultaniya; but
to India the Mogul rulers carried the Persian gardens
which still bloom in the Vale of Kashmir.

The Mongol misrule was overwhelmed by another
equally picturesque invader, Tamerlane, whose Tar-
tar descendants were, in turn, pushed aside by a
Turkoman invasion. Through all these catastro-
phes, in spite of the hordes who descended upon
them from other lands, the Iranian people managed
always to retain their own character. This can be
explained, in part, by the fact that the most learned
and able of their philosophers, their poets, and their
highly skilled artisans were spared by the enemy for
the value of their work. For their own aggrandize-
ment the conquerors became patrons of the arts.
They also employed Iranian officials in governmental
posts, realizing that, successful as they were as
fighters, they had scant knowledge of citizenship.

By the year 1500 a new dynasty, the Safavid, rose
to power, and for the fourth time the country was
able to regain its independence. The new Shah, an
Iranian, gained the throne by overthrowing the hos-
tile Turkoman tribes in the West and the Mongol
Uzbeks in the East, binding together his countrymen
in common patriotism for a free nation. It was he
who greatly influenced the European Renaissance.
That resurrection of art and learning was due to
some extent to the culture of Greece having been
preserved by Iran, whither Grecian philosophers had
fled when driven out by their Roman conquerors.

The Safavid monarchs ruled until the middle of

ANCIENT PERSIA 19

the eighteenth century. The most famous was
Shah Abbas (1557-1627), brilliant contemporary of
Queen Elizabeth and James I. He was an able strate-
gist, making great conquests with few soldiers, and
he governed wisely. His rule is still called the
"Golden Age/' and every fine old building, road,
bridge, and caravanserai in and near Isfahan is at-
tributed to him. With intelligent tolerance and
sociological insight, he encouraged the Armenian
Christians to settle in his country, knowing that their
industry would greatly help to advance the prosper-
ity of his kingdom.

He was so popular, even after his death, that there
was a common saying: "When Shah Abbas ceased to
live, Persia ceased to prosper." While the statement
was true, the reason appears to be that the age of
commerce had begun. European merchant mariners
had begun to ply the seas. Iran, lacking easy access to
ports, lost the advantages of her central geographic
position, for the caravan overland routes of Asia were
superseded by ships, which could transport cargoes
cheaply and quickly. Thus weakened, different
provinces of the country again came under the rule
of tribal chieftains, who warred with one another.
Internal disorganization enabled the sturdy soldiers
of Afghanistan to conquer Iran in 1722. This was
a psychological as well as a military humiliation, be-
cause the Afghans were not a cultured people.

Again Iran looked for a deliverer. Turning aside
dissension, it gathered strength under the leadership
of Nasir-ed-Din. In 1 874, at the age of twenty-six, he
was the first ruler to visit Europe, He took the first

20 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

steps toward modernity by establishing a regular
postal service, by granting a concession to the British
Indo-European Telegraph Company, and by paving
the way for the present Imperial Bank of Iran. He
organized military colleges and a polytechnic school.
But the country at large remained ill-governed, as
unfortunately he was influenced by the Russian
court, which for strategic reasons wished its neighbor
on the south to remain weak. There was at the same
time strife with the British over Baluchistan, as a
result of which Nasir-ed-Din was compelled to grant
concessions, including the tobacco monopoly, to
English speculators.

Soon there was talk of an economic partitioning
of the country by Great Britain and Russia, as a chess
move in their tense, international, political struggle.

On August 31, 1907, when these two countries
signed an ominous covenant, an arbitrary line was
drawn across the unhappy country; Russia's "sphere
of influence," including the capital at Teheran, was
to be north of this; England's sphere south of the
dividing line. Only the salt desert of central Iran
would remain her portion! In The Strangling of
Persia, W. Morgan Shuster says that, in order to dis-
credit the existing government, these two Powers
fomented internal disorder by encouraging, with
money and arms, the tribal leaders and their semi-
wild tribesmen to make devastating raids on travelers
and villages. They also supported the rebellious
partisans of the deposed Shah, Muzaffar-ed-Din, the
son of Nasir-ed-Dn.

Russia, at this time, was much weakened by the

ANCIENT PERSIA *i

war she had lost to Japan in 1905, and was eager to
build up her resources. She knew the value of, and
wished to control, production and trade around the
Caspian Sea, especially its agriculture and. fisheries.
This is Iran's most fertile and productive area. On
the other hand, Great Britain had a concession giving
her control of the extensive oil fields of the south,
the nation's most valuable income resource, and she
also wanted to insure the safety of her route to Ba-
luchistan, which, by this time, she had made part of
India.

By 1 906, the corruption and incompetence of the
government had caused over 15,000, mainly mer-
chants, to leave Teheran, declaring they would not
return until the Shah granted a constitution. He
yielded and issued a call for a national Mejlis, or
Parliament, to be chosen by the princes, clergy,
nobles, and merchants.

After the formation of a constitutional govern-
ment, Russia wielded a high and mighty hand over
the Mejlis, which, in order to bolster the bankrupt
treasury, was seriously considering signing over the
country in a wholesale manner to the Czar. Already
the Russian consular officials in Teheran were dic-
tating governmental policy. The proposal was up
for tense discussion. Doubts were expressed through
the city that the Mejlis could manage to stand firm
for national independence. And then occurred a
phenomenon which is without parallel. It was the
women in their harems women who had endured a
double form of oppression, social and political who
rose up, resentful that their men should be unable

22 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

to preserve a liberty in which their sons might grow
up free Iranians.

Through their husbands, their fathers and bro-
thers, who were members of the Parliament, the
women learned of the necessity of some vital action
to protect the state. Disguised in their chadars, many
of these upper-class women went to one another's
houses and held secret meetings. At the peak of pub-
lic tension, when the bazaars of the capital buzzed
with fears that the deputies would yield to Russian
imperialism, progress took a long step forward in
the land of Darius by virtue of its women. As Mor-
gan Shuster describes it:

"Out from their walled courtyards and harems
marched three hundred of that weak sex, with the
flush of undying determination on their cheeks. They
were clad in their plain black robes with the white
nets of their veils dropped over their faces. Many
held pistols under their skirts or in the folds of their
sleeves. Straight to the Mejlis they went and, gath-
ered there, demanded of the President that he admit
them all.

"What the grave deputies of the land of the Lion
and the Sun may have thought at this strange visita-
tion is not recorded, but the President consented to
receive a delegation of them. In his reception hall
they confronted him and, lest he and his colleagues
should doubt their meaning, these cloistered
mothers, wives, and daughters exhibited threaten-
ingly their revolvers, tore aside their veils and con-
fessed their decision to kill their own husbands and
sons and leave behind their own dead bodies, if the

ANCIENT PERSIA 23

deputies wavered in their duty to uphold the liberty
and dignity of their people and nation. And the
members of the Mejlis, faced by the militant
women, did not sell their country's birthright!"

By the new constitution, the Mejlis took control of
the finances of the kingdom, a wise check which was
disapproved of only by the spendthrift Muzaffar-ed-
Din, as foreign countries, through gifts and loans of
money to the Shah, had gained control of the country.
Parties formed on both sides, and argumentative civil
war raged between the liberty-loving Nationalists and
the Absolutists, which latter were supported by Rus-
sian troops. The Nationalists were successful.

The government tried to establish organization,
but the country then almost entirely illiterate was
exploited by opportunists, a small group of wealthy
noblemen who maintained their positions by in-
trigue both with Russia and England. The national
treasury being bankrupt, the government was forced
to accept loans from foreign powers.

The geographic and economic "strangling of Per-
sia " caused the National Parliament in its extremity
to turn to America for advice. W. Morgan Shuster,
an American economist, revitalized the fiscal systems
in 1 9 1 o and 1911, and became temporarily Treasurer
General.

The Iranian Minister of Finance had had his diffi-
culties. He is quoted as having said: "I work with
the assistance of 500 amiable thieves. When I dis-
miss one, 300 letters come, assuring me of his ability
and faithfulness; the writers of these are my friends;
I must be polite and not say that the man they en-

24 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

dorse is a rascal We need an American adviser of
finance. He could dismiss all 500. He would ham-
mer a desk and say to me: Tour Highness, it must be
rectitude, not favoritism; then the difference be-
tween ancient and modern will be cracked down
on/ "

Mr. Shuster found that the difficulty originated in
the fact that this ministry did not hold examinations
for fitness, but gave positions to men with family or
political influence. His first inquiry was for the
national budget from which he hoped to gain some
idea of the total gross revenues of the government,
and of the amounts which were supposed to be al-
lotted to the different departments for their mainte-
nance. He learned that no budget existed! His
efforts toward financial stability met the constant and
deliberate opposition of Great Britain and Russia.
At length the latter sent an ultimatum to the Mejlis,
demanding the dismissal of Mr. Shuster, and sending
along troops to enforce the order.

When the eagle of old Russia swooped down and
its iron claws plucked at the heart of the unfortunate
kingdom, Morgan Shuster returned to Washington.
"I have often been asked," he wrote later, "whether
the Persians were really capable of reforming their
government; whether they had degenerated; was any
true national spirit among them? We all know how
easy it is to give patriotic utterances in the heart
of an orderly community, when there is no danger
involved in fiery defiance of the powers of evil. But
when a body of seventy representatives, In danger of
prison, or a worse fate, at the hands of an overwhelm-

ANCIENT PERSIA 25

ing force, withstood day by day the intrigues, bribes,
and threats which the agents of a powerful nation,
Russia, were freely employing, and when these sev-
enty men went down into oblivion, still refusing to
sign away the honor and integrity of their nation,
I think the question as to national spirit may be con-
sidered to have been thereby fairly answered."

During the World War, Iran unwillingly was a
factor in European politics. Germany, in preparing
for the crisis, had laid many plans. She was anxious
to continue the "Berlin to Baghdad" railroad into
Iran. During and after the war, my observation of
German plans and their development caused rne to
extend my military interest beyond Baghdad, for I
realized that that city, as a terminal, was only a tem-
porary objective. Germany had for years taken steps
in Palestine and in Turkey to unite the Mohamme-
dan countries under her "protection." Iran is, in
many ways, the key to Asia; her vast Mohammedan
population is in close contact with fellow religion-
ists in Afghanistan, India, Java, and southwest China.

Before and during the World War, German agents
were active throughout the country in spite of its
declared neutrality. It was also harassed by the
armies of Russia and Turkey. Independent Kurdish
tribes dashed at will across the country. When the
Armistice came, it was still so overrun by troops it
seemed to local statesmen that Britain, in making a
comprehensive agreement for the control and devel-
opment of the country, was attempting to incor-
porate the ancient kingdom into the British Empire.

A young Iranian told me bitterly: "England

26 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

thought we were waiting for the undertaker, and that
she was the best mortician. She long kept a rifle
corps in the south, ostensibly to protect the oil fields,
but the soldiers 'penetrated' our whole country, and
today her air force is strong across our border in

Iraq."

Iran had suffered much from old Russia, but the
Soviet government diplomatically canceled all debts
and made many overtures. It offered to provide
schools and telegraph lines if Iran would start a
campaign of communist propaganda. "Liberty and
independence for every country " was the slogan; but
as 75 to 80 per cent of the population are agricul-
turists who own land, and as it is all they have, state
ownership made no appeal. No arguments were o f
avail except one for friendly agreement, pledging
mutual support.

England had always been Russia's competitor, but
when Edward VII promulgated his "New Policy"
there was an about-face. England, having established
an entente cordiale in 1904 with France, wished
to * 'build a ring around Germany." She tried to se-
cure Russia as an ally, but there were many points
of disagreement, for to protect India she had for-
merly opposed Russia, both in Turkey and in Tibet*
Knowing that Russia, after the Russo-Japanese war,
was too weak to become dangerous in these countries,
she made an agreement that scientific expeditions
tmght go to Tibet. This new friendship resulted in
Iran's situation becoming almost hopeless, for every
act of her government was subject to the supervision
of he Russian and the English legations.

ANCIENT PERSIA 27

In 1921, her ruin was nearly complete. Skeptics
questioned the value of doing anything. Iran was
apparently too weak to resist the fate of partition,
or of annexation to the British Empire. Either idea
was hateful Only a man of great courage could save
the country, one who would have sufficient following
to fight successfully for its independence and pros-
perity.

A patriotic newspaper editor, Sayyid-ed-Din, to-
gether with a small group of friends, officers in the
National Army, seeing the hopeless corruption of the
old regime, planned a coup d'etat. The most potent
aid came from a general in command of the cavalry
division. That general, Riza Pahlavi, was from the
Mazanderan Mountains. He had led his battalion in
repeated successes against the Russians. He was a
splendid soldier. ' Commanding a force of 2500 men,
he carried out Sayyid's scheme and marched upon
Teheran on the night of February 210, 1921. Sayyid
at once proclaimed himself prime minister and made
Riza Commander-in-Chief of the army. In that quiet
and bloodless revolution, Iran's nationalism was for
the sixth time reborn, and the man who had entered
its capital was destined to lead his country, revive its
prestige, and establish its independence.

IV

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER

THE great changes which have taken place in
Iran are due to the remarkable character of the
present Shah. From the ashes of an empire a phoenix
arose.

The impulse of nationalism, here as elsewhere,
has, in the past, risen mainly to reaffirm despotism.
The present ruler is the first in Iran to think in
democratic terms, for, paradoxically enough, al-
though he is a dictator, he is working consistently
toward a democracy. This, however, will not be
realized until the old privileged class is balanced by
the education of the lower classes.

Before Riza Pahlavi became the ruler, he ex-
pressed his personal preference by wishing to be
made a President. The people forced him to follow
their idea of government by becoming Shah. In the
twenty-five centuries of her history, from the time
the Medes and their kindred racial brothers, the Per-
sians, freed themselves from the dominion of the
ancient Assyrian Empire, a strong man has arisen
from time to time to repel invaders and become the
head of his people. As recently as twenty years ago,
after the Great War was over, Iran would have dis-
integrated and become a bone of contention for

28

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 29

greedy nations to growl over had not a new leader
begun to emerge from the ranks. No one but an
Asiatic could have provided the spark to relight the
nationalistic flame, and the people are gratified that
a sensible, determined, executive son of Iran guides
them today.

It is true that in modern times, during the rise and
fall of other countries, Iran has remained almost sta-
tionary; but its deep-cut cliff sculptures preserve
many records of life at different periods showing
that, triumphant or shackled, it has from ancient
days, in times of good fortune or ill, absorbed not
only those it has conquered but its conquerors as
well, making both a part of the fabric of its existence,
thus forming a lasting foundation for nationalism.
Climatic and sociological conditions have combined
to produce a race which, in spite of devastating wars,
has been a homogeneous unity in its continuity of
life and thought.

The present Shah is as different from his predeces-
sors as this new age is different from all which have
preceded it. He is neither an inheritor nor a dis-
penser of traditions, but a close student of govern-
ments and peoples. He has undertaken to find out
why the various monarchs of the past have failed.
He realizes that the low average of education and
opportunity made those overlords acceptable, here-
tofore, and kept the masses from demanding what
today is regarded as every man's and woman's right
a fair opportunity for comfort, education, and inter-
esting living.

It is pertinent to inquire how the historic heritage

go A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

of this man has developed in him the psychological
discrimination and the capacity to remold a nation
which has remained for the last thousand years with-
out any significant alterations in the common pattern
of its life. Also why it has so remained. His char-
acter, as evinced in his work, answers the first query.
Three valid reasons for the latter may be given:
first, Mohammedan influence made life traditional;
second, there was scant communication with the out-
side world, and no desire to establish it; third, reas-
onable fear and distrust of foreigners, for these had
usually been invaders.

When Riza came into power, he was about forty
years of age, and unknown outside his division of
the army. He had no scholastic education nor po-
litical experience, but he had learned all that the
army could teach him. He was a man of action,
somewhat rough and blunt, currying favor with no
one. The son of a poor family, he had never trav-
eled outside of his own country, except for a short
journey to Russia when he was twenty-four years old.

He was acknowledged to have plenty of common
sense, and in his military school classes he had shown
much intelligence. His ability and the general recog-
nition of it was what led the army officers who ar-
ranged the coup d'etat to select the cavalry brigade
under Riza's command as the best to carry it
through. Without an effort to be so, he was popular
with his men, he knew the pages of the book of life;
he has progressed since then to know its index, chap-
ter headings, and contents; they have all become
clear to him.

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 31

He is the essence of his people citizens, soldiers,
peasants, merchants, executives; he has in him an
element of each. He knows the emotions of the
leader and of the led far better than if he had been
born a prince. He has the genius of inspired ideas
which have grown out of his deep-seated realization
of the acute needs of his people. Entrance into her
governing class, composed of the aristocracy, would
have daunted a less determined man. His vivid
independence carried him through.

The whole dynamic career of Riza Shah is of espe-
cial interest to Americans because he, like our own
Lincoln and many others in America, has risen
through sheer ability from poverty to become a great
leader. The golden thread of heredity, dimmed at
times or woven too deeply in the pattern to be ob-
served, may shine forth generations later, when by
some fortunate combination of heredity coming to
the individual, through widely different channels, a
genius is produced.

Riza's mind was filled with the conviction that
something drastic must be done for his country, and
done quickly. A man of education and social con-
tacts would have weighed in his mind many possi-
bilities. Riza saw only one; there was strenuous
work to be done; he believed it to be his destiny to
do it. He was able to impose himself upon his world
by impressing it with his own sense of responsibility,
supplemented by the people's belief in him and in
his ability to establish and maintain their indepen-
dence.

There must be an immediate break with both

3 2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Russia and England. The Nationalistic government
must, without loans, obtain funds to maintain itself.
As the new Commander-in-Chief of the army, he
demanded credits to meet the expense of an increase
in the enrollment of troops, and insisted upon being
consulted in all important matters. The money was
obtained by command of the Prime Minister, on the
basis of Morgan Shuster's report on resources in
1911. Several of the most important aristocrats who
held large properties, including many villages, and
who had long evaded taxes, were arrested and the
government seized their lands. Incompetent em-
ployees of the government were discharged; embez-
zlers were replaced with honest men; a general over-
hauling of the ministries began to weed out corrupt
uses of power. There was, at first, more resentment
at, than opposition to, these vigorous tactics. When
the new, self-appointed Prime Minister, Sayyid, in-
curred the increasing opposition of the Soviet am-
bassador and of the jailed aristocrats, Riza seized the
opportunity for his vaulting ambition to be realized.
On April 5, 1921, he forced Sayyid to resign, and on
the same day promoted himself to the position of
Minister of War and set up his own emergency gov-
ernment.

As the Shah Ahmad was pleasure-loving and away
on a protracted holiday, Riza without opposition
took the direction of affairs into his own hands.
During the first two years of his dictatorship, he uni-
fied the country. Through his conquest of the law-
less Luristan tribes of Southwest Iran and of the in-
tractable sheik of Mohammerah who ruled the tribes

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER *&

%JU

of Arabistan, Riza became a national hero. His sub-
jugation of other isolated, belligerent tribes within
the realm was both picturesque and convincing. He
systematically disarmed the Bakhtiari and Kashgai
tribesmen and subjected them to the central adminis-
trative authorities of police and finance. By 1925
Riza had personally ridden at the head of victorious
troops into every rebellious section of his country
and had received sworn allegiance, thus renewing na-
tional pride, valor, and confidence.

When he took office as Minister of War, he had a
small, dignified bust of himself placed on the gate-
way leading into the army headquarters in Teheran.
There, around a vast courtyard used for a parade
ground, stand the offices of the military department,
the barracks, and the armory. The significance of
this bit of sculpture lay in the fact that, unlike most
busts which customarily face out from a building,
this looked upon the courtyard and the barracks, to
indicate that the new minister would keep complete
military oversight of everything relating to the army,
training, and administration.

An exact duplicate of this first bust was set soon
afterward on the outer side of the great gateway
looking over the city, to indicate that he had eyes for
civic as well as for military affairs, and, Janus-like,
could look in two directions at once. "What does
the military strength of a nation protect?'' the inner
bust seemed to inquire. The outer replied, "The
life, the liberty, and the security of our people."

Because of his prowess and patriotism, he was al-
ready a hero. These two busts gave the people con-

34 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

firmatlon that In their Minister of War was the
caliber necessary for a future Shah. In having those
busts made, he defied the time-worn tenet that
all statues are prohibited by Mohammedan tradition.

In 1923, two years after the coup d'etat,, he had
gone so far that he could announce himself Prime
Minister at the head of his own governmenta po-
litical move easily accomplished with the assistance
of the army. The reigning Shah, a dilettante, had
returned from Europe for only, one year during
Riza's epic campaigns. In his absence, the crown
was theoretically represented by the youthful crown
prince, Ahmad's brother, who was, however, known
but vaguely to the people. The deposition of the
Shah was openly discussed in the spring o 1924. Yet
there was understandable hesitation, for this would
be a highly irreligious act. Not only was he, by age-
old precedent, called the King of Kings, but he bore,
as well, some of the awesome titles with which the
ancient Zoroastrian rulers liked to embellish their
office: "Shadow of the Almighty/ 3 "Viceregent of
God/' and "Center of the Universe/'

In 1924 Riza fostered an abortive plan for a re-
public. He wished, as had Mustapha Kemal, to
become President, but the idea was not popular. The
people were accustomed only to absolute rulers. In
October of 1925, he forced through the Mejlis a
parliamentary document deposing the absent Ahmad,
and authorizing a Constituent Assembly to convene
with him for the determination of a permanent gov-
ernment. Within two months the Assembly's pre-
arranged work was done- It adjourned with a proc-

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 35

lamation announcing Riza sovereign of Iran, the
first of a new dynasty of Pahlavi.

Like Caesar, the new ruler might have said, "My
family begins with me." In April, 1926, the corona-
tion took place amid suitable Asiatic splendor, and
the stability of modern Iran was assured. No one
had made him king; no politics, no party had lifted
him; he had not called on the army. He became ruler
solely on the ideals which he held for the country.
They were the living force which impelled and
guided him then, and which now sustain and en-
courage him to go on unremittingly.

From that hour he has organized and led all the
inspiring programs of reform; the cooperation he
has received indicates his country's determination to
render itself worthy of its ancient glory. He has, and
demands, respect for the dignity of his office. He has
a profound sense of responsibility in making himself
worthy of the mighty rulers, statesmen, and warriors
who inspired him when he was a boy. His is a typi-
cal success story, based on idealism and hard work.

For many centuries the world at large has been in-
different to, and has known little of, Iran, partly
because of the fact that travelers have not been en-
couraged to visit the vast, remote upland. But Riza
Shah Pahlavi has changed this, for he has seen that
only through acceptance of the West on friendly
terms, the adoption of its progressive method of edu-
cation, and its healthful modes of daily living can
his own people become modernized, or even survive.
In every branch of its life, it is being remodeled and
revised in short, westernized, but with discrimi-

3 6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

nating differences, for the new Shah Is seeking to
achieve these changes In his own manner.

He believes in adjusting his reforms to the tempo
of his people. Eventually, they will affect every
phase of life. Neither agreement nor disagreement
affects his determination. He will have a sound and
free country, independent, self-assertive. Although
his edicts issued through the Parliament are sweep-
ing and autocratic, they are met, for the most part,
by the responsive willingness of his people. The
world has in him a dictator building for democracy,
preparing his people for the rights and duties, the
privileges and responsibilities of democracy.

The Iranians realize that his work is designed for
the good of the nation and that he is determined to
do well what he has undertaken. He has no desire
for wealth and no time for social life. At 4 A.M. he
visits the barracks. He motors to every part of his
realm once a year. Its area is about 628,000 square
miles, or over one-fifth the size of the United States.
He has an escort but no guards; his carriage has a
wide road space before and behind it. Hitler, in
contrast, has 7000 soldiers to protect him against
assassination, and Mussolini a detachment of the
Italian army.

This Shah of Shahs blasts tradition. Twelve years
ago he knew nothing about economics and world
trade; today he wisely directs the activities of pro-
duction and distribution throughout his country.
His energetic statesmanship is not negatived by those
who are steeped in the poison o prejudice. Iran
loves the King idea. He is the Darius of today.

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 37

There is an old saying of the poet Saadi, "People
have the faith of their monarchs." This is always
the case when rulers have strong characters: Riza
stamps his personality on his country. He is the per-
sonification of their own faith in themselves; he is
their inmost word and desire made flesh. Having
a strong determination to see their racial unity given
expression, they follow the drastic orders in spirit
as well as in letter. It is safe to presume that the
conservatives, who plague with objections and stub-
bornness every element of change in any part of the
world, must in time acquiesce as they realize more
fully the benefits they are receiving..

Such a benevolent despotism might be hastily
criticized as tyranny. But it must be obvious, even
to the most superficial observer, that the Shah's pro-
gressive edicts are advantageous to his subjects; in
fact, they are the manifestation of changes which
they themselves have long felt to be imperative,
which many of them have anxiously awaited. He
has no self-indulgence, and cannot be called a despot
in any derogatory sense of the term. All human
beings have limitations, but this man is an instru-
ment of something larger than himself the hope and
happiness of 19,000,000 countrymen.

Without sound finance, no governmental idealism,
however profound, could move forward an inch. And
it is significant of the high statesmanship of Riza
Pahlavi, that the recovery of internal revenue has
developed financial liquidity in his treasury unique
in the post-war depression world. Thanks to the
initial improvement under Mr. Morgan Shuster, and

38 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

the four years' work directed later by another Amer-
ican Financial Mission under Dr. A. C. Millspaugh,
the Government has proceeded systematically and
wisely to the point where it is now one of the rare
countries with a balanced budget and an available
surplus. Taxes are regularly collected; the civil ser-
vants and the army are paid promptly. Only a
meager public debt exists, which could easily be dis-
posed of.

The wheels of administration revolve smoothly.
Old taxes which burdened the people have been
abolished and indirect taxes increased. The revenue
and expenditure of last year's budget was five times
as great as that of twenty years ago. Their coin, the
rial; is appreciating in value, and the National Bank,
now an entirely Iranian institution, constantly ex-
tends its operations. Its new bank notes are sought
with increasing frequency in the remotest villages
an indication of public confidence in the soundness
of the currency.

As Colonel, as Commander of the Army, as Min-
ister of War, Riza Pahlavi came successively into
contact with men of higher rank. Having a strategic,
balanced, and discriminating mind, he observed that,
unlike the tribesmen, these high-ranking men had
no association with women other than their own
wives and daughters. In social life women took no
part; there was no comradeship in working together
for the general good, such as gives balanced respect
in tribal life where women have always remained
unveiled and are always busy.

In Teheran, he gradually met in diplomatic circles

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 39

many men and women from other countries, and
so gained a broader view of the importance of women
in social activities. He heard with surprise of their
health programs and social welfare work. He arrived
at the conclusion that intellectual companionship
between men and women was an asset. He observed
that the children of missionaries were healthier than
others it was obvious that educated women made
better mothers than the ignorant wives in the harems.

It is greatly to the Shah's credit that he saw at the
beginning of his power that the strengthening of
maternal influence in his country would be of the
greatest benefit to the coming generations of citizens,
who must be trained to be able to preserve the strong
state he would build for them to carry on. As he
learned more about living elsewhere in the world,
he concluded that it would be necessary for all the
women of Iran to have an opportunity for educa-
tional development. His many-sided mind compre-
hended that a revolution in social, domestic, and
economic life is as vital to progress as are telephones
and motor trucks; that the old grooves of life, from
which the masses of people had not stirred for cen-
turies, must now be widened. The problems of the
Shah were multifarious and tremendous, but not in-
surmountable. Having the example of western
countries and of a progressive neighbor, Turkey,
Iran is achieving and will continue to achieve,
within a comparatively brief span of years, a point
in social evolution that we have struggled to attain
through a long battle of trial and error.

Turkey's modernization under the late Mustapha

4 o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Kemal Ataturk has been particularly stirring and
convincing. When His Majesty, Riza Shah, In 1934
visited the President of the third Asiatic republic, he
learned far more than he could have learned either
from the Russians or the Chinese, and he reached
many valuable conclusions. In Turkey he observed,
among many other things, that radical changes in
the position of women and of the lower classes had
helped to stabilize society. The reforms begun there
fourteen years before were no longer in an experi-
mental stage. The Shah was an analytical spectator
of the greatest sociological drama of all time. He
evaluated appreciatively the benefits to Turkey
under general education for the masses. He applied
similar changes to his own country. It has been
easier for his followers to accept a code of thought
already tried out in a Mohammedan country. In-
stinctively they feel that it is something which really
may belong to them, and there is no such resentment
as would probably constrict their minds and render
them obstinate if foreign sociologists had urged the
same changes. Since domestic, civil, and religious
reforms have been successful in Turkey, Iran feels
that they may be tried in its own cities, fields, and
homes.

Socially and racially, however, the two lands are in
many ways fundamentally different. It was much
easier for the Turks to change their life; they were
not so bound by old customs and traditions; there-
fore they could more easily throw away the old and
accept the new. Iran, on the other hand, with an
ancient history, culture, and customs, has the men-

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 41

tality of people who cling to the glory of the past.
They have had to be prepared to accept the new, and
the Shah has had the wisdom to prove to them, step
by step, that it is better. In Turkey, the center of
social, religious, educational, and business life having
been for centuries in Constantinople, European in-
fluence has, since the days of Byzantium, been strong.
The civilization of Europe has been familiar to all
classes there through military, cultural, and com-
mercial contacts.

Turkey's background is largely heterogeneous. It
has been composed of divergent peoples, many of
whom were antagonistic to each other. Iran is far
more homogeneous, with deep traditions of endur-
ance. Through reorganization, the Iranians are now
building a new nation basically their own, adding to
it the best that ages of experience and evolution in
other countries have produced. The new country,
like every new life, has its own personality. Over
a long period of time, many traveled Iranians have
realized that reforms were necessary to national vi-
tality, but their dread of the aggressions of the pos-
sessive Russian Bear and the British Lion sapped
their energy, and forced them to use their intelli-
gence mainly in retaining possession of their country.
Now that their Shah's statesmanship, supported by
an army of approximately 90,000 men, well trained
for defense, has released them for constructive think-
ing, Iranian statesmen are sedulously studying for-
eign affairs. Many diplomats are graduates of foreign
universities and have brought back to their country
new ideas and new ideals. The influence of the

42 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

foreign mission schoolsEnglish, French, American,
Russian within the country has also opened many
young minds. Increasing knowledge of the dignity
of domestic and social behavior in western standards
of life has influenced thousands of men and women.
The changes which they sensed as desirable have
happily now become imperative, for the robust au-
thority of the Shah is making them into laws.

Riza's initial ruggedness and hasty actions have
become somewhat tempered during his fourteen
years on the throne. He has learned a great deal
about the world into which his monarchy must fit,
and has often sought advice from qualified econo-
mists and political scientists; in more than one dis-
pute he has cooperated with the League of Nations.
He is undoubtedly one of the most colorful and ex-
pert statesmen in the world. He has a fine physique;
is over six feet tall; has a well-molded head and ex-
tremely clear-cut features, a high forehead, deep-set
eyes. His hair and mustache are gray. His face
combines great strength with sensitiveness; care and
anxiety are in it, but resolution is the dominant
quality the determination which characterizes a
man who is unswerving in high ideals, who demands
much of others and of himself. His large eyes see
a far and practical vision. He looks through, or past,
trifles. As he stands alone in a long room to receive
members of the diplomatic corps or ministers of
state, his erect military bearing, his square shoulders,
his height, and his composure give him a dignity
which makes most people who approach him feel
smaller than they usually do.

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 43

His son, now in his early twenties, is the center of
his heart and of his ambitions. What sort of country
will he develop to leave to this son's guidance? Will
the prince carry his responsibilities well? Those who
know him believe so. They have had a totally dif-
ferent upbringing. The boy had excellent tutors,
and since he was sixteen he has been surrounded by
the best educational influences of Switzerland. Will
these prepare him to carry on the kingdom his father
has built without the necessity for the unusual dy-
namic force his father has? With the remolding
accomplished and security established, he will, no
doubt, be able to use arguments and suggestions in-
stead of dictates. He will come to know government
officials who, as progressives, have developed execu-
tive ability and will be dependable assets in the con-
tinued modern development of the country.
Through health, taxation, education, and many
other reforms made permanent, his father is cutting
the stones and rebuilding the national house to be
one in which a man who is not a mason or an archi-
tect may live and expand.

The marriage of his Imperial Highness Crown
Prince Shahpur to the Egyptian Princess Fawzieh is
of vast religious and political importance, because it
unites the two powerful rival sects of the Sunni and
Shiah Mohammedans, who have, over a period of
thirteen hundred years, often violently opposed
each other. Politically, the Prince's influence in
Iran is enhanced and, as King Faruk is the leader
of the pan-Islamic movement, great strength will be
given to this by the union of these key countries.

44 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Among other things, the British route to India by
sea and land is now strategically dependent on their
good will. The culture and personal charm of these
young people, the gracious reception of each In the
other's country, all augur well for their happiness
and future influence.

The Shah himself dislikes all evidence of show or
ostentation. He lives modestly, most of the time
either in a suburban summer home near Teheran,
which is comfortable but not palatial, or in his
official residence, set in a large garden in the capital.
He has a high energy potential, is busy all day, every
day, and has no patience with inertia. His working
day is frequently not less than twelve hours a stand-
ard of concentration which he also demands of his
ministers and governors. He holds no state dinners;
travelers cannot call on him, for he is too busy with
the affairs of his country. He is determined to over-
come the ignorance and consequent backwardness
of his people, to awaken them to their deepest needs.
They appreciate this and give him their loyalty and
cooperation.

In his address at the opening of the tenth session
of Parliament, June 7, 1935, he said in part: "This
nation has been in the past so held back by negli-
gence, so oppressed by poverty, that, however much
we move forward, we realize all the more our lack,
and the urgency of our need. The only hope is to
exert much greater efforts than before. The pro-
gram of work must be the aim not only of the Gov-
ernment and its officials, but of every single individ-

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 45

ual in the nation. All must join hands and strive
for results."

No man has ever been in the position of this Shah.
He is wholly constructive and has given his people
rebirth of self-confidence and self-control which is
restoring their sterling qualities. There is no flam-
boyance, but his is a marvelous projection of per-
sonality. He is working for the state as a temporary
dictator, hoping to build a national strength that
will ultimately need no dictatorship. He receives
diplomats of other countries only on the day when
they present their credentials. His sole recreation
is to make, at rare intervals, a visit to Pahlavi
Island. During his periodical tours of inspection to
all parts of his empire, he supervises the execution
of his orders, and judges of the progress being made
in standards of living, in the building of homes,
stores, factories, and roads, and in the influence of
the first railroad in Iran.

The national flag is tri-colored: green, white, and
red. Green is the sacred color of Mohammedans,
and also represents agriculture, therefore the oasis,
therefore home. White is for purity, red for sacri-
fice. In the center, on the white background, typi-
fying leadership, stands a lion with a scimitar in his
paw and the sun rising behind him. Shah Riza
Pahlavi is the lion that Iran has needed desperately
for so many years.

Does he have enemies? Naturally. But not as
many as one would expect. For the most part he is
appreciated.

The success of the Shah is the result of far-

4 6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

sightedness, singleness of purpose, and the unspar-
ing use of energy, combined with executive ability.
He is the type most Americans admire, for he has
surmounted difficulties which would have over-
whelmed a lesser man.

There are a few whispered, Oriental tales of the
disappearance of men who have betrayed the trust
placed in them, or who have refused to obey laws
made for the common good. No one can say whether
these tales are true, but it must be remembered
that every act of his majesty is under "that fierce
light which beats upon a throne/' and when ques-
tions have risen they have been satisfactorily
answered.

A tribal chieftain was captured because he was
recalcitrant, fomenting armed resistance to govern-
ment regulations, determined to keep his followers
an independent group. Three weeks after his im-
prisonment he was reported to have died of typhoid
fever. His tribesmen protested that he was too robust
to have been overwhelmed so rapidly with infection.
As a reply his body was sent to them. It was un-
mistakably their chieftain, and he was so emaciated
that it was evident that fever and microbes had rav-
aged his body.

An original method was successful in overcoming
the opposition of another chief. He was a magnifi-
cent horseman, tall, thin, and fearless, the idol of
his followers. He was taken prisoner and the only
penalty exacted of him was that he should not leave
Teheran and that he must accept all invitations ex-
tended to him. As a result, he was so well-fed, and

MODERN IRAN AND ITS RULER 47

had so much leisure, that in the course of time he
grew fat; so well-entertained that he enjoyed the
capital and began to regard the rigors of mountain
life as undesirable. His tribesmen and women heard
of his soft living with disgust. If he had returned
to them he would have been ignored, so he stayed on
in the capital, a general social favorite and no longer
a government menace.

Riza Shah has set out to do in half a lifetime a
task which reasonably would require at least three
generations of well-directed effort, and he is accom-
plishing his purpose, rebuilding a nation against
all odds. Knowing a good deal of the world as it is
today and a fair share of history, I think that he is
one of the most remarkable men who have ever
lived. While most rulers today know that their ships
of state are churning around in a sea of discontent,
he is calmly surveying the highly competitive and
impatient world, as an officer on the quarter deck
regards a storm, observing what turns it takes and
considering when it will probably subside. Back of
him is the melodrama of the ages; dynasties have
risen and perished Iran has survived. He has no
such terrors as the present powers of Europe, no such
hostilities as are rife there. His mind is not in dis-
array. He has a definite and fair purpose and is
able to see it through.

v

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY

WELL-BUILT highways unite Iran's eleven
large cities, which have populations ranging
from 350,000 to 50,000; and twenty smaller cities in
which the population exceeds 10,000. There are, in
addition, approximately 45,000 villages. The roads
cover 20,000 kilometers, over which thousands of
motor cars and trucks travel each year.

Altogether I traveled about 3300 miles on various
trips, the interest of which made the discomfort of
motoring in the inferior cars which are rented for
general travel of negligible importance. I stopped
often, saw much, and, as I learned rural conditions,
came to feel at home in new and exciting surround-
ings.

I saw the stark human drama, the charm of sim-
plicity, the courage of those who fight the desert,
live on little, and are happy; in short, the life of the
people and the happenings in tiny villages and their
surrounding fields. Along the modern roads of Iran
I went, easily and pleasantly, back through two thou-
sand years, and came to know people who are coun-
terparts of their long-distant ancestors, and of those
who, for intervening generations, have lived the same
primitive lives as they. Evolution here is at a stand-

48

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 49

still; incentives for progress have been lacking as
the people have had to meet only repetitious daily
needs; their opportunities and expressions of life
have remained the same through the centuries.

The picturesqueness of the road which bridged
the transition between the new and the old is height-
ened by contrasts. Automobiles dash through the
streets of Iran's modernized capital, and camels lum-
ber along the caravan routes. There have been no
covered-wagon or iron-horse eras; from camels to
airplanes was the transition!

Almost gone are the romantic days of the caravan,
when each day's journey, for five hundred and more
years, ended at a huge, walled-in serai, conveniently
situated on the road so that it might be reached by
nightfall. The traveler, to be sure, still passes trains
of camels and mules, and sees many in the distance,
where their silhouettes undulate against the far-off
horizon, seeming to vanish against the fawn-colored
mountains. Around their necks deep-toned bells
reverberate sonorously through the dry air. These
are vestiges of the days when this was the main route
to the East, and camels brought back the produce
of China, India, Turkestan and Golden Samarkand
to the markets of the Levant, Egypt, and Europe.

Along the roads many of the old caravanserais re-
main, their pointed arches still noble, though they
are ruins now* Their dark-domed recesses have
given refuge to countless travelers and legions of for-
gotten pilgrims. Today there are only a few where
weary men and animals find refuge from sand storms
when they halt in the desert dusk, They are *xo

5 o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

longer needed, for there is a village at approximately
every ten-mile interval, with friendly chai-khana,
tea houses, which have become the center of local
social life. In these the traveler may find coffee or
tea, or sherbet cooled with snow. Ice is brought, as
it was by the Greeks and Romans, many miles on
donkeys during the night from the mountains; and
to prevent its melting, it is buried in containers deep
in the earth. Its coolness is a blessing after the heat
and dust of the never-ending desert roads. If neces-
sary, these inns can also provide surprisingly good
meals: kababs, bits of chicken or lamb with onion
between for flavor, cooked on a skewer; or an ome-
let; or milk, heavily curdled, made into little balls
with chopped meat rolled inside. There are also
many kinds of delicious melons and peaches, pears,
figs, oranges and dates.

At some of these chai-khana^ travelers may stretch
out on a rug and rest in high-ceilinged bare rooms;
light comes through the patterns pierced in the thick
walls near the roof. Rugs may be spread to sit on
cross-legged, in the alcoves of the courtyard where
the villagers and travelers gather for eating, for con-
versation, and for the exchange of news.

As we passed many of the small, scattered villages,
some composed of a few mud huts, while others con-
tained housing for a thousand or more people, I ob-
served that the women take part sturdily in the field
labors, and, of course, do all the tedious but reward-
ing domestic work. Families live in two- or three-
room one-story huts; there is no sanitation except
that provided by sand and the sun.

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 51

The men were at work as blacksmiths, well diggers,
cutting and hauling trees; making poles and doing
primitive carpentry, or had other small Industries.
The majority of the people are self-sustaining
through agriculture, either in production or by
transportation and sale in towns. Donkeys, laden
with wide baskets filled with bright fruits and vege-
tables, enliven the road; tobacco, poppies, and melons
from this village; and tomatoes or egg plant from
that; and other multi-hued produce give moving
color in many shades and patterns along the other-
wise dull stretches of the long, rough roads.

The village women have never worn veils at home
or in the fields; usually they have over their heads
and shoulders short chadars made of bright printed
cotton or homespun, which shield them, to some
extent, from the sun, and are convenient to hold
over their faces when passing vehicles raise a cloud
of dust.

Most travelers charm us by tales o the unusual,
but, while I found much that I could headline, it was
the sweet, human commonplaces, the recognition
of the fundamental kinship in human interest and
behavior which most impressed me. Most of the
villagers are intelligent but illiterate and as yet know
little of the outside world. "They believe more in
fairies than in religion/' At one place we were hos-
pitably invited to enter the village compound, into
which flocks and herds are driven at night. This
revived an impression made upon me by Biblical
pictures of life at the time of Abraham. The com-
pound was surrounded by flat-roofed, two-room

5 ss A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

houses which opened into it; there is little privacy,
or home life as we know it. Instead there is a pas-
toral community, almost as gentle as the life of
sheep and goats and at times the odor suggests
them!

Each family is a unit providing for its own needs.
If it is not the plowing and planting season, there
is goat's-hair rope to be made and cloth to be woven
on handlooms by the women and children for their
winter clothes. Some I saw were engaged in the slow
process of carpet weaving. It is comfortable for the
women to weave while sitting on their heels, so the
warp is stretched close to the ground and is held in
place by several wooden stakes. The wool for the
carpet is grown on the village sheep, then sheared,
cleaned, washed, spun and dyed. Near the loom is
an iron pot in which the weaver makes dyes out of
walnut shells, grape skins, pomegranate rinds, mad-
der root, onion skin or indigo.

A slender stream by the side of the road deter-
mines the site of a village, for without a brook there
would be no water for vegetables or animals; as one
woman said, "The plum trees would bear no fruit/*
As there is no reserve supply of clothes, they are
washed daily; food, dishes, and bodies are indiscrimi-
nately in and out of the running water all the time,
and beside it there is pleasant chatter. ' 'Tongues
and water run where women meet/' my guide
remarked.

The water supply comes from the melting snows.
The water passes along ingenious man-made under-
ground tunnels. At each village there are one or

THE VILLAGES-AMD YESTERDAY 53

more openings from the surface to this artificial sub-
terranean river. Some towns have openings down
to this only twenty-five feet apart, but customarily
these kanat are about a mile distant from one an-
other. The inhabitants of each town use the water
for household purposes and for irrigation, dipping
it out by means of buckets. From time to time, men
clamber down the steep sides and stand waist-deep
in the water, cleaning the kanat. If these water-
ways were blocked, it would mean water famine and
death during the eight rainless months, so it is obliga-
tory for each town to see that they are kept open.
Wondering why the earthen sides did not cave in, I
looked down several and found that they were wisely
sloped. I also observed that the low earth wall
around the top of each well would prevent a rush of
water into it during the rainy season.

For the village families, the day begins at four
o'clock in the summer, or even earlier. Each person
has his routine; the youngest boy gathers from the
fields, where the corn or wheat has been cut, straw
to feed the cattle, and, if they are sufficiently wealthy,
to feed the donkey, sheep, and goats as well. The
father, after making or mending a primitive plow
of wood, tied together with goat's-hair rope, hitches
it to his ox or donkey, and starts the furrows; his
half-grown son laboriously digs usually with a
wooden spade irrigation ditches for water which the
ox draws from the well in a skin bucket by means of
a windlass; or the boy may make holes into which
wet watermelon seeds are placed, always by the small-

54 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

est girl for, In order to germinate satisfactorily, they
must be planted by a guaranteed virgin!

The eldest daughter, early in the morning, at-
tends to the milking. She and other barefooted
women carry copper vessels on their heads or in
their hands, and walk swingingly up and down steep
mountain trails to reach far pastures. When the
shepherd sees them coming, he separates the milk
goats and drives them inside a rough, stone-walled
corral The women, in order to select their own,
squat in a double line, and each seizes by the leg
the animals which belong to her as they enter one by
one through the narrow opening. When the milk-
ing is finished, they gather under a tree, and the
head woman supervises the measuring of the milk
from each container, after which it is all put to-
gether in goatskins for its journey homeward, there
to be redivided.

The daily chore done, there is time for a bit of
relaxation; the shepherd pipes a tune; the girls, in a
circle, begin to dance with an almost imperceptible
movement of their hips, which makes their full
skirts sway this way and that. Rhythm and momen-
tum increase. Gradually they move their hands,
arms, and shoulders in increasing muscular undula-
tions. They gracefully lift their arms, snap their
fingers, coquettishly tilt their heads, and, as a feature
of the dance, hold one forearm lifted as though to
shield their features. Their hair, combed straight
back, is plaited in many long, bobbing braids, which
pat against their backs and dance with them. The
older women are seated. They strum an accompani-

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 55

ment to the dance on their copper pans until the
laughing girls, hot and breathless, drop to the
ground. Soon each one, carrying a full goatskin like
a knapsack on her back, swings off down the
mountain.

The preparation of food in the villages is an ardu-
ous and ever-pressing occupation, slowly accom-
plished over a charcoal fire. In this country I had
supposed that village people had much leisure; on
the contrary, breakfast is eaten at dawn in order
that the villagers can accomplish all the tasks of a
summer day. It is, perforce, a hasty meal of bread
and ma$t\ for lunch their bread is dipped into water
or milk.

If a man has two wives, they take turns in making
bread and in churning butter. The latter is in a
goatskin; the process is wearisome. The curdled
milk, mixed with a small amount of water, is put
into the goatskin, which is suspended between three
sticks. For a couple of hours the skin is shaken by
sudden jerks. At intervals the bag is opened, a little
warm water added, then it is re-tied and the move-
ment continued.

Cheese is sold or kept until eaten often for
months in the goatskin. When they offered to sell
some to me, the string around the neck was untied
and the hairy skin turned back. Although the shiny
inner surface was clean, I was not sufficiently hungry
to care for any cheese.

Food for the winter must also be prepared. I
observed a girl of about sixteen who was busy boil-
ing down fresh goat's milk over the charcoal outdoor

56 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

fire, until it could be mixed with flour in order to
make it into small balls to dry for the winter's food.
How lucky it is that all the elements of food are in
milk and that goat's milk is particularly rich in
vitamins!

After the harvest, when the grain is cut and the
gleaning is over, brooms made of date-palm leaves
tied together, or of a bundle of twigs, are used to
scrape up what remains of the grain. Then the don-
keys, goats, sheep, and camels graze on the stubble
that is left. Finally the owner returns to collect the
droppings of the animals for manure and for fuel.
Could economy be more complete?

In or near every village, whatever else is raised,
wheat is always grown. This grain has, besides its
domestic value, a sacrificial one. Once a year each
family provides a village feast. On these occasions
a goat or a sheep is killed, partly roasted over an open
fire, and pieces of it are put into a dough made of
ground wheat and water and recooked. What would
have made bread for the family for many weeks is
cheerfully used up in a day, for the villagers are con-
vinced that these feasts appease evil spirits and keep
illness away.

At first one thinks how impractical and foolish
this is, but on second thought one realizes that it
promotes village good-will. It is the annual act of
hospitality, and the food is not wasted; for that day
all the other families have no need to use their wheat
nor to kill a sheep. A balance is struck in a twelve-
month, and these recurring festivals are refreshing
interludes in a life of drudgery uncomplainingly en-

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 57

dured, finding its reward only in eking out a bare
existence.

It is not unusual to have ten children in one
Iranian family, but that does not mean a rapid in-
crease of population. It is rare for more than three
in such a family to reach maturity; life is so rugged
that weaklings and the very old do not survive.
Each woman looks after her own baby; that is, she
feeds it every time it cries, and sews innumerable
charms on its few garments. The babies sleep in
little swinging cots made of a piece of wood slung
between two stakes, which can be set up anywhere,
enabling the mothers to keep the babies near them
wherever they may be at work.

The villagers are inexhaustibly fond of fairy lore.
They believe as devoutly in sprites as North Ameri-
can Indians believe in rain gods. This may be de-
nied in progressive Teheran, but sit by a new moon
in almost any village and, if you are sympathetic,
you will hear tales of elves and pixies which will
bring the fantasies of your own childhood trooping
back to you. They are real to the village adults and
are more important than a mullah's blessing; for
the 'little people 5 ' have great influence for good and
evil. When they have been offended, prayers for
protection against their anger are offered to Mo-
hammed, or to his disciples, the Imams, of whom
there are nine buried in Iran, and theirs is a saintly
intervention.

Ways change slowly in villages; it is a gigantic
task to bring isolated people from the feudalism of
the Middle Ages into the cooperative citizenry of the

58 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

twentieth century. Many o them are far from mail
roads, but gradually their villages are being pene-
trated by occasional newspapers, governmental reor-
ganization, and new buildings. The greatest changes
are coming through local schools.

Life for the women who live in these scattered
and small villages is much freer and healthier than
for the same class in the towns, for they have more
active interests, and the simplicity of life makes for
consciousness of interdependence. Equality of vil-
lage social position keeps them from feeling their
poverty.

Each village is owned by a man who occupies a
position similar to that of the medieval European
feudal barons, but, instead of living in a castle sur-
rounded by serfs, the village owner usually lives in a
distant city in a fine garden, on the money his tenants
have earned for him. There has been no conception
until now of raising the living conditions of workers,
who have been patiently acquiescent. Village schools
will open their minds to possibilities of which they
never dreamed. Restlessness and discontent may be
the first effect, but soon they will find satisfaction
in the increasing advantages and broadening scope
of their children.

The most astonishing village is Yazd-i-Khast,
which means "God willed it/* It is built on a comb
of rock which rises precipitously on all sides from
the bed of a river that has been dry for thousands of
years. Ages back, this must have been an island in a
deep river, and in appearance it suggests a colossal,
stranded ship. It can be reached only by means of a

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 59

precarious footbridge made of tree trunks, the far
end of which is supported by what used to be a river
bank, reinforced by a primitive wall of stones. It
looks much too precarious to attempt; however, don-
keys and humans who are used to it pass over to the
rubble and mud houses with apparent ease. The
houses are reinforced by curious, very narrow bricks.
Yadz-i-Khast gives the general impression of the high
cliff dwellings used by North American Indians. The
people who dwell in this aerie make a living by rais-
ing grain and poppies in the valley which surrounds
their natural fortress.

Beyond the villages, out on the face of the desert,
live the nomad tribes, who still pitch their black
tents for a night and drift on again in the morn-
ing, as their restless ancestors have done for countless
generations.

When I set out to learn something of the life of
the tribes to which a fourth of the population belong,
the desert floor was hard and there was no wind.
There was a feeling of spaciousness, and cool night
air. The stars seemed to be larger and brighter
than usual as constellations moved majestically
across the sky.

As I looked forward to dawn, it seemed to me that
in many ways Iran's new day is analogous to sunrise
after long years of night. On the desert in this
latitude the sun rises abruptly; swift and clear, with
no hazy, lingering dawn. It is like a sudden awak-
ening from sleep with eyes fresh and wide to greet
a new day. Iran today has no drowsiness in the twi-

60 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

light of half-consciousness. After her seemingly end-
less night of terrors, exhaustion, and evil dreams,
her new day has begun.

In Arabia, Afghanistan, Tibet and southwestern
China there are still to be found tribes living as they
did in the earliest historic stage of man's develop-
ment. Tribal history goes back to the period before
the separation of the Aryan tribes of Iran from those
other Aryans whose westward emigration from cen-
tral Asia was destined to lead to the formation of the
Indo-European races of today. From that time un-
til today many of their customs have remained the
same. They venerated the sun, sky, earth, water,
fire and winds, as on these depended their primitive
welfare and the weal of their flocks and herds, which
were kept for safety in inaccessible mountains.

The lusty wanderers of today move from place to
place in search of pasture, and live in black, goat's-
hair tents. They played a bold part in the days when
"Take what you want and hold what you can" was
the code of the road.

The Bakhtiaris, the largest and most powerful of
the many tribes, are of pure Iranian stock. They
inhabit a southwestern mountainous district of some
25,000 square miles, where their character, which
necessarily must be fearless, has developed to fit the
rugged tests of their land. For them risks have been
the common experience. Decisions must be made
speedily, for life in jagged mountains, with heavy
snowstorms and swift streams, allows no time for
meditation. The shifting of their camps and the
care of huge flocks of sheep and goats demand vigor-

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 61

ous physical stamina. It is the life of this and of
other stalwart tribes which the Shah seeks to stabi-
lize by coordinating nomadic efficiency and self-
sufficiency with community interdependence. This
is the first country in which, instead of overwhelm-
ing tribes by military force, this has been done by
law.

In the past, every year the Bakhtiari, Kashgai,
Lurs, and other tribes migrated from the desert to
the mountains in search of pasturage for the ani-
mals and to raise wheat and other necessary food.

This epic nomadism has been preserved for history
by that remarkable film, Grass., made about fifteen
years ago from the narrative by Margaret Harrison
of Baltimore, and the views taken by Ernest Schoed-
sack and Merian Cooper of Florida, who were able
to accompany the Bakhtiari on their trek.

In the spring, snow torrents dashing to the desert
make it bloom abundantly, for it is never really
dead. Its resurrection in grass, flowers, and weeds
gives pasturage to cattle, sheep, and goats. As the
summer progresses and the succulent leaves are con-
sumed and the rivulets dwindle away, the animals,
hungry and parched with thirst, would die if the
tribes did not fold their tents and go up the rough
mountain roads and across the rapidly flowing rivers
in search of high pastures. They stay there until
heavy snows make It necessary for them to trek back
to their old or to a new camping ground. The ad-
venture is looked forward to as the great excitement
o the year.

These adventurous tribesmen were unruffled by

6s> A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

the new economic Interrelation of the country In
which they lived. So long as they were not molested,
they went on raising large herds and making rugs.
But one day, when these defiant individualists headed
for the mountain pastures, the Shah ordered soldiers
to confiscate their rifles, and, more disastrously still,
confiscated their cattle as they came back. He com-
manded them to settle down in stationary communi-
ties to contribute to the town life of Iran. They were
no longer to be a "floating" population. They must
raise crops systematically and concentrate their
energy upon the arts of Progress.

Such methods were drastic. When the tribesmen
insisted that they were living the life congenial to
them as it had been to their ancestors, the Shah
replied: "That is exactly the difficulty. You are liv-
ing as your ancestors lived over a thousand years
ago. I wish you to have villages with schools, good
teachers, good doctors, and developed industries, so
that Iran will not have to import manufactured
goods. Wild grazing cattle are not sufficient. Farms
must be built with barns in which to store grain.
We need stationary herds for the fertilization of the
soil, in order to raise vegetables that will supply the
people with nourishing food/'

The chiefs of both the Bakhtiari and Kashgai
tribes had repeatedly asked to have doctors and
school teachers go with them on their migrations,
promising to provide equipment. But Riza Shah
persuaded them that such necessary members of so-
ciety could render satisfactory service only when
their life was stationary. This helped to convince

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 63

the tribesmen that It was Impractical for them to
take such hazards twice a year to scale the mountain
heights and to make almost as perilous a journey
returning.

There was no other way in which the Shah could
maintain unity and assure independence for his peo-
ple. He knows that the continuation of ancient cus-
toms, merely because they are ancient, preserves the
indifference, the idleness, the petty dealing, corrupt
social privileges, the distrust of foreign thought,
which have gone along side by side with these cus-
toms; whether they were in manners, in dress, or in
transportation, they were psychologically bound up
with the ancient conventions.

A chieftain told me, "We are now stretching out
for modern progress. Increasingly the tribal men
and women go to Teheran to learn about their coun-
try as a whole, and most of them willingly accept the
responsibilities of their new world. Our people
never dread the unknown. Dauntlessly they ap-
proach difficulties and overcome them. Administra-
tion problems, planting and reaping, regulation of
supplies, maintaining order in the tribe will all be
duplicated in national affairs. Hordes of nomads in
movementthousands of camels herded along, dash-
ing riders with far-focused eyes looking thoughtfully
ahead, are symbolic of executive ability and the eter-
nal buoyancy of the human spirit/'

In contrast to tribal vivacity are the scenes in the
cemeteries. They, strangely enough, have been the
principal social centers for women in the past. As the
Moslem Sabbath is Friday, frequently on Thursday

64 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

nights, especially when the moon was full, I saw on
the roads leading to the cemeteries crowds of people
In automobiles, buses and carriages. Some men
went on bicycles, others walked, singing as they went.
They might stop for a bit of music, and even to dance
to the notes of tzar or flute. To spend the entire
night in this way was regarded as an act of virtue,
highly endorsed by the priests, and much easier than
a pilgrimage to any of the more popular shrines, such
as Kerbela, Qum, or Meshed.

For centuries past, as well as today, in most ceme-
teries the tombs of the wealthy resemble our large
mausoleums and contain several rooms which are
carpeted, have cushions, curtained windows, vases
filled with flowers, in order that the dead may rest
in rooms similar to those in which they lived. The
principal tombs are covered with an embroidered
velvet canopy or a fine carpet.

Either on the end of the tomb, or on the floor, is
a small stand to support the Koran. The relatives
sitting in the tomb room or in one adjoining, hear
the Koran read, say prayers, and smoke water pipes
or cigarettes. Stands support elaborate upright or-
naments made of glass, in which candles are burned.
For the less elegant, simple lamps are used, or
smoky wicks in cups of oil. The presence some-
times of a bowl of water is an unconscious survival
of the Zoroastrian belief in the sacredness of water,
a natural form of nature worship in a land in which
that element is scarce.

Sometimes the inner walls of the principal tombs

THE VILLAGES-AND YESTERDAY 65

are decorated with a frieze of Koranic texts. Their
domes are covered with turquoise and deep blue
tiles. The clear colors reflecting the light at dawn
and sunset give cheerfulness to the whole cemetery.
Clustered around the tomb of saint or poet are the
graves of their admirers, who have taken comfort in
the thought that after death their bodies will be
placed nearby. Dead saints may be appealed to for
help in case of a poor harvest, an ailing child, or to
recover any lost object, but it must be understood
that they help only Moslems!

The dead who are not buried near their former
homes are taken in an automobile, or sent by cara-
van, hundreds of miles to Meshed, Kerbela, or some
other holy city, a journey which may take a week or
longer. Nothing is more melancholy than to see a
corpse caravan approaching by moonlight. The
dead, wrapped in black felt or in brown goat's-wool
blankets, are roped upon shaggy horses or strapped
to the sides of camels. So terrible is the odor, in that
land of heat, that the men accompanying the camels
frequently have to change places with those walking
to the lee of the caravan. The wealthy embalm their
dead; the poor often sacrifice everything in order to
bury a loved one near a shrine.

It is a gruesome sight to see several members of a
family huddled on the back seat of a car, and the
ends of a narrow coffin sticking out of the open side
windows. The poor place the dead on a board and
cover the corpse with a carpet. Imagine a journey
through the heat and dust of the desert, pinned in by

66 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

such a barrier; but this is luxury compared to the
lugubrious pilgrims jogging along on muleback, and
to those on foot who overflow the road.

Passing such a group plodding wearily along, I
saw, a little distance away, a jackal standing by the
bones of a dromedary which gleamed white in the
moonlight. As we journeyed on the night seemed
unendingly dreary. I longed for another sunrise.

VI

THE CITIES-AND TODAY

THE town of Teheran was first mentioned in
the twelfth century by an Arab geographer,
Yakut, who expressed the resentment of his people
against the superiority of Iranian culture by a blast-
ing, critical comment on its inhabitants. He speaks
of them as "troglodytes, living underground in a
semi-savage state." He referred, no doubt, to the
large cellars that are still comfortably furnished for
summer use and form a cool retreat from the intol-
erable heat; a basement living-room where the fam-
ily rest or have their meals served during the hot
hours a luxury rather than a reproach.

Teheran now has a population of 400,000, and
life is lived there largely in modern terms and pro-
vides the pattern for the entire country. As the
capital, it is leagues in advance of the rest of the
land, not only because it is the intellectual center,
where foreigners and officials gather, but because
here more business is transacted in a day than in all
the rest of Iran in a week. It expresses the zenith of
life in this old-new world and sets a stimulating ex-
ample. A few years ago it was almost as unpreten-
tious and khaki-colored as the cities of Arabia now
are. It has become a modern metropolis, with many
architecturally fine official, business, and private

67

68 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

buildings. Tennis courts, ball rooms, dignified and
well-run restaurants give life modern charm.

There are many newly constructed, wide-parked
boulevards, for winding streets can no longer serve
the swift traffic. There are recreation parks and
public gardens for all citizens. The new streets are
required to be forty feet wide, to provide for ever-
increasing traffic. The message sent to house owners,
accompanying the order for this, read in part: "We
need wide streets more than you need your large
private garden. We are sorry if it inconveniences
you, but your house will have to be remodeled.
You have two months in which to complete the
change/' This feverish activity in building was
inspired by eagerness to have everything in readiness
for the visit of Kemal Ataturk, which was eagerly
anticipated up to the day of his lamented death.

Cement roads in Europe were a luxury, or were
built for military purposes. Now they are consid-
ered a matter of course. In Teheran I was told with
pride: "We now have wonderful wide roads that are
paved! Each city works from its own budget, and
considerable force is put behind the effort, for other-
wise people would not understand that they must act
at once. The upheaval has been continuous for two
years, but much has been done/' In many cases the
work has been done too quickly, with the result
that streets have been closed for widening, then
obstructed for asphalting, then torn up to make side-
walks. Then they have been dug up for telephone
wire, then for electric wires, and now for piped water
and drainage pipes.

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 69

Houses built along narrow, cobblestone or dirt
streets have been remodeled or torn down to make
way for new structures with high ceilings, adequate
windows, tile roofs, and smaller gardens. No one
seems to have escaped having some part in this large-
scale renovation. Public and private buildings,
schools, factories, garages, offices all are springing
into the air. Public playgrounds are spreading out
under newly planted trees.

Only a highly nationalistic and enthusiastic peo-
ple would attempt to build new streets and new
houses at the same time people to whom gigantic
effort is as nothing compared to the object to be
attained. I still see the barriers made by the debris
of torn-down high mud walls, and of building mate-
rials to be reused, piled in 1935 in the narrow lanes
which up to this time had served as streets. The
yawning, open-faced houses which were waiting to be
remodeled looked as wrecked as many I saw in north-
ern France during the World War.

In 1937 I found these narrow roads had become
tree-bordered boulevards and the houses were enjoy-
ing their restored dignity. In the interval, while
unemployment had been the cry of the West, in
Iran every one had been and still is happily busy.
There is even a dearth of labor.

Along the Lalezar, the main street of the capital,
which is well-parked down the center, are hotels,
shops of all sorts, and travel bureaus.

When the Shah was criticized for his extravagance
in planting trees but a few feet apart along a seven-
mile boulevard, he replied that it was practical, for

70 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

they immediately gave shade and beauty and the
value of the wood grown would pay for the outlay
when the trees were large enough to be thinned out,
as labor costs little.

There is an artistic loss in the removal of six of
the eight ancient city gates, which in architecture,
color, and tile work were distinctive. However, this
shows the rapid growth of the city and equalizes land
values which used to be low outside the gates. Low-
ering the walls also has an advantage in allowing an
approaching visitor to see the beauty and the plan of
the city. As I walked along the streets, I was im-
pressed by the city's individuality, for I could not
compare it with any other capital in the world, al-
though it reminded me, oddly enough, of two
extremes: Mexico City, architecturally, and Helsing-
fors, Finland, on account of the blooming parkways.

The streets are enlivened by the cries of venders
of various wares; by phonograph music from open-
faced cafes, in front of which men sit smoking their
hubble-bubble pipes; and the bells of passing camels
and donkeys. The donkeys' existence saves the lives
of porters, for if they had to carry all that the donkey
trudges under, they would sink beneath the weight.
All I could usually see would be four small legs
below a load of folded rugs, ready to be shown at
once, or to be taken to your hotel for closer
inspection.

The street scenes of Teheran are as full of color as
a tapestry. Turkeys are driven along the street and
are sold on the hoof. Two men on opposite sides
of the street each had a flock. The birds became

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 71

mixed, and the men quarreled. The next day all
the tails in one flock had been dyed a deep purple,
but rain caused them to fade. However, this man's
ingenuity enabled him to sell most o them before
that catastrophe.

The little open carriages called droskes, which
have a wide, luxurious seat in the back and a small
drop-shelf for a seat behind the driver, are reminis-
cent of the victorias used in America fifty years ago.
The driver sits with dignity in his high seat. The
harness is decorated with shiny metal discs and tas-
sels. The gaily ornamented whipstands give a holi-
day appearance, while the tails and manes of the
horses are dyed with henna. Patches of this are
symmetrically dabbed here and there on their white
coats, and to "touch them up/* rouge is customarily
added around their mouths and nostrils, and some-
times a rim of black kola is painted around their eyes.

It was difficult to read the signs on shops, because
all Latin letters had been removed from them. The
only recognizable symbol was a large initial letter S
which had been allowed to remain on top of a tall
Sewing Machine Company building. The erection
of public buildings has all been under the direct
orders of the Shah. He had approved the plans and,
when he thought it advisable, attended to details,
but, alas, was not reminded of the plumbing or the
rearrangement necessary to light the buildings and
streets, before the old electric power plant had been
made able to stand the strain, so lighting for a time
was inadequate.

As one looks at the new buildings and realizes

72 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

the pride taken in them, it is gratifying to observe
that the Iranian architects have not gone to the ex-
tremes which mark modernity by ruthlessly discard-
ing the beauty of the past. Here the gradual transi-
tion has not begun with bad taste and ended in
artistic social defiance.

Architects and artists employed by the Govern-
ment in the numberless new buildings have a wide
field for their talents. The home of His Imperial
Majesty, the new post office, the Parliament build-
ings in which the Mejlis assembles, the administra-
tion headquarters for different ministries, the cus-
tom house, theater, hotels, opera house, and music
halls are characteristic. The architects have adapted
old motifs to taller buildings, introduced better
lighting than the ancient lamps and candles, and
given thought to heating, far in advance of the
braziers. The convenience and comfort of these
excite the admiration of those who have stepped
across the ages.

Teheran is busy, thrifty, modern and ancient. It
is surrounded by the desert vast, primeval. Out
there at sunset streams of molten color flow, from
which all things majestic all things humble may
be made. The desert and the oasis are the creative
extremes which have influenced Iran and always will
do so, producing contrasts which are both stimulat-
ing and satisfying.

We came into Isfahan about four-thirty in the
morning. As we turned into the high-walled lane
the eyes of a startled gazelle were caught and held

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 73

by our automobile lights; she was bewildered, trem-
bling, with no idea of how to escape. A man came
along the narrow lane, singing in the dark to keep
the jinns away.

Each city has a soul, large or small. Isfahan has a
great soul and carries in it qualities of many sorts,
mental, emotional, historic, architectural No won-
der the natives enthusiastically exclaim, "Isfahan is
half the world!" It presents in buildings, bazaars,
and narrow streets a picture of ancient Iran's life
and art. Here is heard the throbbing heart of time
long past, and one feels the pulse of modernity start-
ing on untraveled paths; you look both ways, but you
walk and talk with Shah Abbas, who ruled Iran
when Queen Elizabeth ruled England. Isfahan was
his capital. One of the buildings of his palace is
now used as an educational office, but the same
flowers grow in the gardens around it as brushed
against the gauzy skirts of the ladies who walked
there when this building housed his harem.

The population of Isfahan in Shah Abbas' day
numbered a million; now it is one eighth of that
size. Under him the arts and crafts of the Moham-
medan period reached their finest flower. He
planned the city with its magnificent open square,
which is sixteen hundred feet long, and two hundred
and fifteen feet wide. This was one of the first polo
fields in the world. The ancient carved stone goal
posts at either end still stand. The Shah wished to
surround the huge oblong square with exquisite
buildings. Therefore, he had the gate to his great
mosque placed at one end, and the entrance to the

74 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

grand bazaar It the other. Opposite his palace and
its gardens the second magnificent mosque was
erected. Spreading laterally from the sides of each,
high walls with alcoves in them repeated the tower-
ing arches in miniature. This made a public square
which had never had a counterpart. It is called
"The Maydan."

What a feeling for majesty Shah Abbas must have
had! It shows in all he caused to be built. There
is regal dignity in the graceful, three-story royal
pavilion, the Ali Kapu, in which he often sat with
courtier guests. The second story is open on three
sides; the roof, supported by thin columns, is deco-
rated with colors and gold. He was truly a king
in the grand manner. Here, overlooking the city
three hundred years ago, he received ambassadors
from many countries. Behind this famous pavilion
stretch the extensive palaces and royal grounds.
One day I entered these and wandered through the
abandoned courtyards and patches of gay bloom,
past a grove of trees on beyond the barracks of the
former royal guard and of the police of today, until
I reached the great gardens where stands the hall
of the forty columns, the Chilhil Sutun. There are
only twenty, really; the other twenty owe their origin
to the reflection of the colonnade in the cairn waters
of the great oblong pool in front of it, and to the
poetic minds who found the reflection as important
as the reality.

Each of the delicate, tapering pillars that support
the roof is made of a single tree; they are carved
with infinitely fine lines and have, as part of their

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 75

strange bases, mythical animals. At the corners of
the pool in which they are reflected are standing
figures of women dancers, each holding a mask.
Under the shade of the painted and gilded ceiling,
the deeply arched recess of the portico once held the
throne. In the inner great hall, the audience cham-
ber of the Chilhil Sutim, the ceiling of which is still
gay with quaint pictures, once had its walls covered
with paintings. It now contains a well-arranged
exhibit of modern art and industry, fortunately in
accord with its rare setting. In other parts of the
old palace grounds are buildings that have been put
to other civic uses.

At the left-hand end of the Maydan Park rises the
majestic archway which completes the city's archi-
tectural plan and leads into the vast bazaar, parts of
which are far older than the Isfahan of Shah Abbas.
When he chose this city as his capital, he determined
not only to make it symmetrically beautiful and im-
pressive with lavish decoration, but in all ways pre-
eminent. To accomplish this he summoned all the
artists of his realm to create for him a royal city,
of which, fortunately, so little is changed that we
see today the success of their achievement. By en-
couraging culture of every sort, he created a "golden
age." He stimulated caravan commerce by having
the best expressions of the wealth of the world
brought to the bazaar. Local industries flourished.

We find today many examples in miniatures, en*
graving on gold and silver, inlay, and tiles. His
Inspiring appreciation ranged from murals and car-
pets to sports, bridges, and roads, over which rode

76 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

prosperity and fame for Iran. In this zenith period
the inhabitants really believed the oft-quoted boast,
"Half the world is Isfahan."

From the height of the royal pavilion the aspect
of Isfahan changes; its walls do not show;^ instead
it seems as though the city were submerged in green
trees. When the monarch looked across his polo
park straight ahead or to right or left, he not only
saw masterpieces of architecture which he had cre-
ated, but in the distance the wide, tree-bordered
avenue, the Chahar Bagh. This beautiful boulevard
has three roadways separated by double rows of
plane trees and silver poplars; their fluttering leaves
are always joyous, because there is water running at
their roots, in narrow brooks, diverted easily from
the river. The middle road is for pedestrians, and
it is always crowded with people; early in the morn-
ing peasants drive donkeys into town, carrying wide
baskets loaded with cucumbers, apples, apricots,
tomatoes, mulberries, melons, eggplant, or grapes,
according to the season. During the day, those on
business bent are passing; in the afternoon ladies
and gentlemen stroll here. It is for those who have
so lately uncovered their faces an exciting adventure.

At the south end of this street is the Chahar Bagh
Bridge. The views from this bridge, framed by its
arches, are perfect pictures. In the spring the water
from the rapidly melting snows dashes madly along;
at other times the river is almost dry and becomes a
tangled skein of silver threads and shimmering pools
among the masses of stones in its bed. On the banks
are more trees than one sees anywhere else in Iran;

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 77

the leaves, pale jade, green or emerald, dance with
every breeze; the mountains not far off change with
every hour they may be molten silver or burnished
gold, iridescent in blue, white, red, purple and pink,
or they may be rugged and cold, gray, black bleak
or sumptuous. Their peaks flame for a moment like
lighted lanterns, then they etherially fade away.

A light will-o'-the-wisp mist comes up in the river
valley and the brilliant moonlight makes dainty rain-
bows, fluttering here and there. On such nights
many go picnicking under the bridges; someone
plays a guitar or a flute, and there is always compli-
ance with a request for a poem to be repeated.

The rivers of Isfahan will always flow through my
memory. The bridges are especially fascinating;
the Zayinda-rud is crossed by twelve, three of which
are remarkable. The beautiful Khaju Bridge con-
nects the city with the Armenian town of Julfa.
From the bank, when the water is low, the bridge
looks like a splendid building set across the river
bed. It has two levels, the upper for vehicles, camels,
donkeys and other transportation; the lower for
pedestrians. Its sides are composed of two long
galleries of arches, the lower larger than those above.
On both sides are steps leading from the lower level
down to the river. Here women come to do their
washing and children to bathe; chauffeurs to wash
their cars, drivers to wash their camels, and town
and village folk to exchange opinions. The second
bridge is the more ancient, and does not protect its
traffic as the Khaju does. The massive supporting
arches are pierced in the triangles between them by

78 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

kite-shaped smaller arches. A line of laden camels,
taking their slow undulating way over this bridge
at sunset, makes a tawny silhouette against the burn-
ished sky; this is the essence of the days when it was
built, the days of dreaming Asia.

Though it now has a cigarette factory and a woolen
mill in its suburbs, we cannot say that Isfahan dreams
no more. It is full of romance, and it will remain
the art shrine of the country. A metropolis, also,
Isfahan's population of 1 27,000 makes it Iran's fourth
largest city, and a center for trading, marketing, and
shopping. It is within driving distance of Persep-
olis, Shiraz, and Kerman. For all these reasons trav-
elers feel that they have not been to Iran at all unless
their itinerary has been made to include at least a
few days in this once queen of cities, which boasts,
fortunately, a modern hotel that is comfortable and
conveniently located.

To the Iranians themselves, however, Isfahan is
even more than a repository for architectural treas-
ures. It signalizes in their history that renaissance
under Shah Abbas which was as striking as the pres-
ent one under Shah Riza. Iran, following the de-
cline of the Mongol emperors, had been under the
yoke of Turkish overlords. The seat of government
was removed to Tabriz and subsequently to Kazvin.
When Shah Abbas came to the throne, he established
in Isfahan an intelligent precedent. He decided not
to raze the existing royal palace, as was done even in
ancient Babylon, in order that the new ruler might
aggrandize himself by building a greater palace.
Instead, he built rather than destroyed. The re-

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 79

suits ensuing years have not been able to efface, In
spite of the fact that the city was sacked by the
Afghans in 1722.

One of the far-sighted acts of Shah Abbas was to
invite the Armenians, when they were persecuted
by Russians and Turks, to come to Isfahan to teach
craftsmanship to his people. Four hundred years
ago they left their home in Julfa, at the foot of Mt.
Ararat in the Caucasus Mountains, and established
a new Julfa just across the river from Isfahan. They
were good masons, carpenters, and goldsmiths. They
made tiles with beautiful designs and carpets with
fine detail. Wishing them to be contented in his
Moslem world, the Shah gave them religious free-
dom and aided them in building twenty-one
churches, twelve of which still remain in use. Some
stayed in the city, others became agriculturists in
the Julfa neighborhood and in the Bakhtiari
Mountains.

Today new Julfa contains about 10,000 Arme-
nians and the neighboring villages about 3000. They
follow their own customs. Armenian girls make
excellent, conscientious nurses and are successful in
hospital and private work. Others are becoming
stenographers and are eager to go into business.
This is fortunate, for so many men have migrated
that there are not husbands for all the girls. If they
lose their hearts to Iranian youths, both the boy and
girl are disapproved of by their respective families,
for religion to each has a nationalistic value. In Iran
they have been fortunate; no massacres have over-
whelmed them, such as have stained the history of

8o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Turkey. The tact and patience of the Armenians
have been an asset in citizenship, and their religious
fortitude has borne fruit, for their cathedral is an
art center in which the European classical style of
painting, mosaic, and wood carving is glorified.
Their library is filled with superbly illuminated
volumes, and their museum is growing increasingly
valuable, for in it are preserved portions of build-
ings, ceramics, and other ornaments, costumes, books
and many objects which would otherwise have been
discarded in the rebuilding and changes now be-
ing so widely and drastically made.

Except in Teheran there is no social life, as we
know it. The substitute is that on Thursdays, when
most women go to the cemeteries, men go to tea
houses, where they drink cups of coffee, smoke, and
listen to a victrola, chew sunflower and other seeds,
pistachios, and almonds.

It is no exaggeration to say that today there is, in
appearance, at least three hundred years between
Teheran and Isfahan. For once away from the
Maydan and the Chahar Bagh, dreary walls, eight
to ten feet high, line the unpaved streets, which are
often labyrinthine. To be sure, behind those mono-
tones in mud there is beauty and comfort, but not
yet has the city itself removed its veil.

When I was in Isfahan, I learned that Riza Shah
had recently visited the city. In order that there should
be no dust on the road, no one bound south could
start the journey until after His Majesty had arrived.
There must be no dust on the road along which he
would approach Isfahan. When and wherever he

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 81

travels, the roads are closed to all traffic. When he
is on an Inspection tour, everyone knows where he is
expected to spend, or did spend, the night. Isfahan
planned to have thirty-five triumphal arches placed
in strategic places, but the Shah, because of the un-
necessary expense, labor, and time which would be
spent on them, limited the city to three. These
arches are constructed only of wooden frames covered
with gay streamers of cloth; wood is scarce, and there
are better uses for energy.

Everyone was excited, and people were on the
streets at dawn, telling each other that His Majesty
would arrive at four in the afternoon. All day the
city had a festive air; crowds assembled along
the route he would traverse; street cleaners and
sprinklers were busy. The police, feeling very im-
portant, had polished their badges and buttons. The
bridge across which he would enter the city was
extravagantly decorated; every other panel had a fine
rug hung in its archwayan old custom. Huge
reception tents, their inner faces hung with painted
or hand-printed curtains, had been erected. The
one and only fire engine and the steam roller were on
display and added much to the dignity and impres-
siveness of the occasion.

Functionaries and subordinates moved impor-
tantly here and there. Boy and girl scouts in uni-
form, standing very straight, lined the road. The
soldier guard of honor advanced. The crowd was
breathless. A long caravan of cars came through the
south gate. The local dignitaries were awaiting the
guest they had gladly done their utmost to honor.

82 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

The Shah, however, cares little for formality. He
and his son rode in a Cadillac, followed by various
national officials in their cars. They bowed and
passed on. There was little cheering it would have
been disrespectful but all hearts beat wildly.

Resht is a vastly different sort of city. Many of
its buildings show the old, square, fortress-like Rus-
sian influence; many are of sun-dried brick. The
poorer people have thatched roofs, while the well-to-
do cover their homes with stout red tiles to protect
them from the excessive rainfall. The hotel and
other buildings around the small city square are
modern. The mosque, like many others in the re-
gion, was once a Zoroastrian temple, open on all four
sides. It now has wide verandas and strikingly col-
ored pictures on its outer walls. As in almost every
village in Iran, there are imamzada or domed tombs
built as memorials to saints. Sometimes the space
between the supporting columns is open, at others
closed by four doors of carved wood.

At Farahabad, not far off, are the ruins of a once
stately pleasure domain. Here Shah Abbas, after a
reign of more than forty years, died in 1659. This
palace, built in 1611, rivaled those of the great mon-
arch in Isfahan, and was described by the French
traveler Chardin as "a wonder of art that deserved a
kind of perpetuity.'' He saw there "a vast treasure
of dishes and basins, of porcelain and china, corna-
line, agate, coral, amber, cups of crystal rock and
other rarities without number." It was sacked by
a picturesque Russian, Stenka Razin, in 1668. In

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 83

the great house, or tangi, "a jasper fountain cov-
ered with plates of gold 33 was broken by his fol-
lowers. Chardin, who saw it again after its desola-
tion, mourned, "Every time I think of the magnifi-
cence and delightfulness of that place, I cannot but
lament its fate."

The people of Resht differ from other Iranians in
their peculiar dialect, and to some extent in their
attire, for here are the descendants of Scythians and
Medes, Hyrcanians and Parthians, Romans and
Greeks, Turks and Tartars, Arabs and Armenians,
Jews and Gentiles, Circassians, Slavs and Chinese.

This fertile area has been coveted in the past by
all these peoples, so they have invaded it, and each
has held it for a time; their descendants show their
heredity in details of dress, hair arrangement, shoes,
method of walking and of carrying burdens. The
Chinese influence is evidenced by the coolie hats
worn by many of the men, and by the baskets or
boxes carried over the shoulders from the ends of
yokes like poles. These men walk with a swinging
rhythm to which the back and arms keep time as
they run evenly along. This lessens the weight of
their burdens.

The interesting costumes of the working women
are an echo from the days when all the upper class
wore, in their harems, ballet skirts, because a Shah
who had delighted in the Paris opera so decreed. I
saw many women wearing black, tight-fitting
trousers, topped by a short, very full skirt. Above
the waist a Turkish note was struck in a zouave jacket.

Many White Russians have found refuge in Resht

84 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

and have their own school and church. Men and
women dressed in Russian blouses and leather boots
meet ships that come and go between Baku and
Krasnovodsk; their fishing boats frequent the little
wharf. An important economic problem related to
fish has been worked out by New Russia and New
Iran. A complication had for years existed, because
the sturgeon, the most important fish inhabiting
these waters, and a source of rich caviar, has a curi-
ous life history. While these large fish swim cus-
tomarily in the Caspian Sea, the female always seeks
retreat to lay her eggs in the tributary Iranian rivers,
and the young are born there. Therefore, accord-
ing to international law, the sturgeon possesses a
mixed Soviet-Iranian nationality, by virtue of its
residence in waters over which both countries jointly
exercise sovereignty.

On October i, 1927, as part of a general settle-
ment of outstanding differences, an adjustment was
made in an agreement to last twenty-five years. This
brought revenue to the Iranians, as they care nothing
for caviar and were glad to sell their share to the
Russians, who were willing to pay well for a piece
de resistance in their diet. This amiable agreement
probably constitutes a unique instance of the par-
ticipation of two governments in a commercial un-
dertaking made necessary by the temperamental
preference of strong-minded mother fish, determined
to insure the best conditions for their young.

Tabriz, until the reign of the present Shah, has
been the official residence of the Crown Prince and

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 85

also important as the commercial center of the prov-
ince of Azarbaijan. Here exciting border history
has been fought out time and again, for the city's
age is such that "it counts a thousand years as but a
fraction of its life/' After several destructions, it
was refounded in A.D. 790 by a woman who was in
her day a great constructive force, Zobeidah, the
famously beautiful wife of Caliph Harun-al-Raschid
of Arabian Nights fame. A fountain in Tabriz today
bears her name. The most graceful compliment that
can be given to anyone in the thirsty land of Iran
is to associate his or her name with running water.
Even the humble man who carries water in India in
a goat's skin, whom we have come to know through
Kipling as a Beasti, derives his name from Ba-his-ti
(man from heaven).

Tabriz was Zobeidah's favorite residence, and in
A.D. 791 she, in gratitude for her cure of fever there,
caused the city to be rebuilt and gave it its present
name, which means fever-scattering.

Because of its proximity to the frontier, Tabriz
has passed variously into the hands of seven nations:
Armenians, Parthians, Arabs, Seljuks, Turks, Mon-
gols, and Iranians. It was once the capital of the
Armenian King Tiridates III. One of the fiercest,
most overwhelming attacks was that of Timur Lang
(Tamerlane), when he and his Tartars sacked it in
the latter part of the fourteenth century. Later,
by the dramatic changes of the Orient, it became
the Mongol rulers' capital.

Owing to repeated invasion, the buildings of
historic value are few. But these are of surpassing

86 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

interest. They include the striking citadel, the scene
of surprising events; the famous Blue Mosque, and
the tomb of Sultan Ghazan, the latter of special note
because he was a Mongol ruler, and until his death
it had been the invariable custom to keep secret the
burial places of the great Khans. Nearby on the
island of Tola in Lake Rizaiya, according to tradi-
tion, his great-grandfather, Hulagu Khan, was buried
along with a number of young and beautiful women,
according to Mongol custom, together with gold
ornaments and precious stones. Woodcutters who
visit this mountainous island report that the tombs
of giants are there; obviously great rewards await
archeologists.

Ash hills overspread this section and indicate that
men of the Stone and Bronze Ages made this rich
pastureland their own ten or twenty thousand years
ago. Mastodon remains have also been discov-
ered here.

Len Jan and other streets are being widened now,
but many are still paved with cobblestones and are
unlighted; some are labyrinths between high walls,
with side alleys branching off. Therefore, one walks
with care, and after dark the humble citizen carries
a collapsible lantern with an ornamental brass top
and bottom which fit together like a shallow box,
and could be slipped, when not in use, into the
formerly worn broad sashes. They are cylindrical
and have collapsible accordion-pleated sides of
stiffened cloth, much like small Chinese lanterns.
When the Governor, the Burgomaster, or a Magis-
trate walks abroad, he is escorted by a servant who

THE CITXES-AND TODAY 87

carries a lantern, the size of which indicates the im-
portance of the grandee. The Governor's would be
at least three feet long and one foot wide. Soon
electricity will replace all this.

The Arg or Citadel here is a massive structure
which dominates the city and is more than 700 years
old. It is built of red brick, with walls twenty feet
thick and a hundred feet high. On top is a gruesome
looking building which has two yawning dark door-
less arches and seven high narrow windows which
suggest a prison. The forbidding appearance of
this huge and solemn sentinel of the past is height-
ened by its history, for criminals were, in the cruel
days of mutilation, dashed to death by being thrown
from its summit; only one escaped. A woman who
had broken the code of accumulated prejudices some-
times dignified by the name of the law, was, so far
as known, the first parachute artist. She pluckily
preferred to jump to being hurled down. As a result
she accidentally gained freedom and undying fame,
by the lucky accident of a brisk wind ballooning out
her full skirts. She landed on her feet unhurt. This
convinced her jailers that she was innocent of what-
ever the accusation was, and until her natural death
she was greatly honored. Now at the foot of these
towering walls is a cinema theater.

Tabriz is, next to Teheran, the most international
city in Iran. The Skoda, a Czechoslovak company,
is doing much building; Swiss, German, and Swedish
engineers are employed. Russia supplies cement
and machinery. She buys all the cotton raised in
Azarbaijan, and credits this against Iran's purchases

88 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

of materials for bridges, farm silos, etc., and also
allows other construction needs to come through her
country to the Skoda Company, but will not permit
raisins and wheat to go by way of Russia to Ger-
many. This caused Iran much annoyance in 1937,
as it forced her to get eighty million marks behind
on arranged exchanges of goods with Germany.

Centuries ago, Hulagu Khan, the grandson of
Genghis Khan, ruled from Tabriz, a triumphant
kingdom. He is quoted as having said: "Thank
God, I am both a world conqueror and a world pre-
server/' when he commissioned the celebrated
astronomer, Nasir-ed-Din, to set up a magnificent
observatory for his own use, and also to help the
best astrologers of the day, who were his associates
in Tabriz, "to observe the motions of the heavenly
bodies." It was furnished with armillary spheres
and astrolabes. Nothing now remains except some
underground chambers, which were used for main-
taining the instruments of the observatory at an
even temperature.

It was to one of his descendants, Ghazan Khan,
that Marco Polo was commissioned by the great
Khubla Khan in China to escort a princess to be
his bride, Ghazan was an able and far-sighted man.
He made Tabriz his capital and transformed it into
a city rivaling Merv, Balkh, Ray, Nishapur, Bokhara,
and Samarkand. Under him there was a period of
renaissance. He encouraged the constructive genius
of the Iranians to repair the blind destruction which
had characterized the introduction of Mongol power
under Genghis Khan. Architects became busy. The

THE CITIES-AND TODAY 80

J

Iranian prime minister, one of the great scholars of
the East, was Rashid-ed-Din, a native of Hamadan
who wrote a remarkable universal history which Pro-
fessor Browne, an eminent authority on Iranian
literature, has characterized as their greatest prose
work.

In the latter part of the thirteenth century, the
Prime Minister influenced this Mongol ruler to
build in a suburb of Tabriz, which was subsequently
named for him Rashidiya, a college town. In addi-
tion to the remarkable library and other tributary
buildings of the university, there was a hospital, an
astronomical observatory, a school of theology, a
mosque, and a hospice in which visiting scholars
were entertained. This became a cultural meeting
place for the savants of all Asia. Here 15,000 scholars
inspired each other in research and other scientific
work. They planned educational and other reforms
applicable to their various countries, so they uncon-
sciously established the first intellectual League of
Nations.

The city was destroyed, not by hostile strangers
nor by earthquake, but by the manual working
class, who had no appreciation of education in which
they were not fitted to share, and resented the resi-
dence of scholars here in idle ease. Agitated no
doubt by those of somewhat higher mentality, who
were jealous of what they did not share, they at-
tacked and destroyed an incomparable group of
thinkers and their university.

VII

THE PEOPLE-AMD TOMORROW

N undying, unquenchable national spirit is one
the strongest elements in Iranian character.
One witnesses today that unyielding spine of racial
solidarity by which Persia is again holding its head
high among the nations of the earth.

The strong race consciousness of the Iranians has
been heightened by valuable additions to their terri-
tory acquired through foreign conquests, plus the
many and varied contributions from invaders, re-
sulting in a broad intellectual background. This
probably accounts for the fact that the Iranian is
more adaptable than other Asiatic races. When
abroad he is usually a man of the world; and as a
student in the universities of America and Europe,
he does not keep aloof as do most Orientals, nor does
he fraternize only with other Eastern students. He
mingles with local society more easily than do the
majority of Europeans when in foreign countries;
and this power of adjustment to new conditions is
one of his most valuable assets in a world where
change is necessary to progress.

Gifted with keen observation, the modern Iranian
tries to adapt our new ways to his country's needs,
but as yet he is a philosophic dreamer rather than the

90

THE PEOPLE~AND TOMORROW 91

practical type. Polished in manner, without ped-
antry, he quotes aptly from his poets and our own.
He is intellectually sensitive, but also a fatalist, in-
different to time and danger. He has the paradoxi-
cal capacity both to enjoy comfort and to ignore
discomfort.

The typical upper-class Iranian has been called
"the Frenchman of the East/' He has quick intel-
ligence, wit, keen perception, versatility and self-
confidence. He is naturally hospitable. In a coun-
try where leisure is abundant, the Iranians expect
callers to remain at least an hour, even when the
object of the call could be achieved in five minutes.
There is a ceremonious dignity to life in the houses
of the upper class where even the servants are fault-
less and courtly in manner. They entertain so
generously that they are often impoverished thereby.
Graciousness of manner is a habit. In every walk
of life, it is a distinguishing virtue.

As far as a very direct person can do so, I adapted
myself to their social customs, but it was difficult
to accept the low bow of a hostess who greeted ine
with: "Your slave's house and all in it are yours if
you will honor us by accepting; it," and for me to say
when I left: "May your slave have your permission
to depart?" I had found this exaggeration, although
somewhat modified, in social circles in Buenos Aires;
for the Argentine upper class had built its code on
the courtesy of old Spain, which in turn had received
it from Iran when its culture was transferred to
Europe through the Arabs. Moorish palaces in Spain
were a reflection of Iranian architecture and of the

93 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

manners of those who, with Oriental courtesy, en-
tertained in them. The word "slave," however,
was hard to accept, even as a figure of speech; al-
though all who have addressed the Shahs, from
Cyrus to the present day, have referred to themselves
as "your sacrifice."

There is no caste system as in India; wayfarers
tend to be friendly to one another. Men who have
not met before will chat, exchange views, and even
share lunches on their journeys. An old proverb
"By gentle speech and courtesy you can draw a
mountain by a single thread' '-aptly sums up their
social philosophy.

Unlike the Arab, who seems to distrust laughter,
Iranians laugh deeply and heartily. Their sense of
humor manifests itself in a distinctly European man-
ner. Their wit gives salt and taste to all discus-
sions. Whenever men congregate, in caravanserai
or drawing-room, on mountain top or in desert tent,
they enjoy their minds; philosophic generalizations
and the propounding of theories are part of the
conversation.

During my two visits to Iran, I had the good for-
tune to have many conversations both with men and
with women. There was an exciting change in their
attitudes on many points between 1935 and 1937.
They are a sensitive, intelligent people, with a deli-
cate combination of pride and humility, of strength
and weakness. They have had to endure a great deal
of psychological trauma from people who have made
no effort to understand them. This misfortune is
due in part to the fact that they are too proud to

THE PEOPLE-AND TOMORROW 93

Interpret themselves or perhaps they can not do It
in western terms.

They are wistfully anxious to know more about
life as we live it. To my amusement, they asked the
definition of 'loafing/' To dream under a tree seems
to them not only a reasonable, but a delightful, way
of spending their hours. I pointed out that we
agreed with themif there was no responsibility to
be met, the neglect of which we call loafing.

They realize that much of the art of living depends
on how it is viewed by different types of minds, and
on the disposition and efficiency of the individual.
The Iranian has a certain rhythm of mind which
requires poetic balance. We have much realism
mixed with our idealism. They like abstract thought
which leads far afield, while we prefer concrete ideas
on which to base deductions that will bear scientific
analysis.

The Iranians have scant sense of responsibility in
relation to time. They regard hurry as a waste of
time; they consider that a touch of ceremony asso-
ciated with graciousness and thoughtfulness is worth
far more than haste. They do not make decisions
quickly, and their ideas seldom crystallize in the
service of actual helpfulness to others. But the ex-
ample of the West is arousing a sense of social ser-
vice. When this awakens, the present trend of doing
things only for one's family will disappear and the
depressions of a thousand years which have burdened
the under-privileged men, women, and children will
come to an end.

Like the Arabs, the Iranians have a high sense of

94 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

honor. In matters of importance to the Individual,
or to his communal group or tribe, no dishonesty or
double-dealing is tolerated. Though they have not
understood until recently financial allegiance to their
government, these people are more law-abiding than
those in Western lands. Thanks to Shah Riza, pris-
oners are today almost negligible in number. Ban-
ditry exists no more. Robbery with violence, kid-
naping, and murder are far less common than in
most Western countries.

They have, like the Chinese, a remarkable power
of mental and physical endurance. When their vil-
lages were ravaged some sixteen years ago by Kurdish
invaders, and the people were dying of starvation in
every street, the British, when they arrived with food,
found the crowds orderly and in their extremity
possessed of a quiet dignity. This endurance, accom-
panied by a certain passive callousness to suffering,
enabled them to set about rebuilding their com-
munal life in a way that would have been almost
impossible in Europe.

The Greek writers Herodotus and Xenophon
speak of Persian bravery as a proverbial virtue, and
writers through the centuries have echoed the same
sentiments. Though brave, they are not of a bellig-
erent disposition. The fixity of their purpose is
recorded in the familiar phrase, the "unchangeable
laws of the Medes and Persians."

Their detachment is delightful. One day in Te-
heran, on one of the principal streets, I observed a
well-dressed gentleman remove the cushion from his
new automobile and place it, just as his ancestors

THE PEOPLE-AND TOMORROW 95

before him would have spread a rug, underneath a
shade tree. Then he sat down unconcernedly beside
the public thoroughfare and read. He enjoyed the
sparkle and sound of water running, although it was
in effect a wide gutter. It mattered not at all that
the traffic of the capital rushed and shouted within a
few feet, for haste and self-consciousness were foreign
to his psychology and the book was interesting.

To energetic Americans, the Iranians may seem
too dreamy. That is, no doubt, due to several things
which mold character and, therefore, should be taken
into consideration. The long, cold winters limit
physical activity and foster meditation. The summer
days are extremely hot; only the peasants engage in
agriculture. Morning and evening beauty appeal
strongly to all classes. Excessive leisure is not irri-
tating to them as it is to us. This leads to the ques-
tion: from what do we derive our energy? Briefly
answered, we descend from ancestors whose ideology,
thwarted by European political and social codes,
grew restless and ambitious to set up what they be-
lieved would be a better order of living; one which
would have greater mental and spiritual freedom for
them and for their children. This required courage
and determination. To survive they had to over-
come the wilderness, Indian raids, and economic
limitations. Wise use of energy thus became a mea-
sure of a man's ability. To meet the physical de-
mands, plenty of good food was required; all classes
helped to produce and consume this. Regular out-
door exercise in a temperate climate developed bone,
muscle, and nerves. The knowledge of effort being

96 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Individually rewarding was a stimulus. Psychologi-
cally, they had a hopeful, widening outlook, and
were consciously on their way to the accomplishment
of their ideals.

In Iran, food and effort were both limited. Save
for a favored few, the future furnished no psycho-
logical stimulus. The difference between our two
peoples might be summed up broadly by saying that
our natures tend to aspiration, theirs to meditation.

With the increased tempo of life in modern Iran,
however, there are many corresponding changes in
the psychology of the people. The hyper-active im-
petus to construction and building gives the workers
mental excitement. As they work in the streets of
Teheran, they are stimulated by the realization that
each brick and each layer of mortar is building a
new Iran. Many of the high walls, which were safe-
guards around every dwelling, are no longer neces-
sary, as robbery is not a danger to dread on a dark
night; for police are now vigilant. Half walls or
attractive wrought-iron fences suffice, and permit all
to see the beauty which was formerly only for the
privileged the enchantment of tiled pavilions sur-
rounded by rose gardens.

"We are all Iranians," declared the Shah, "and I
will no longer tolerate distinguishing different head-
dresses/' With this decree the national dress, which
up to that time had distinguished Armenian from
Jew, Moslem from Christian, lawyer from merchant,
was abolished; differences of rank and race were sub-
ordinated to give place to the unity of citizenship.

The first decree on costumes was, "All men must

THE PEOPLE-AND TOMORROW 97

wear a special national hat, called the Pahlavi." This
was a stiff, pill-box affair with a visor, like the cap
of a locomotive engineer. The Shah's order struck
at the root o a religious tenet, and was a strategic
move in the separation of church and state; for, by
Mohammedan custom, all persons must keep their
heads covered in the sanctuary, and must touch their
foreheads to the ground in their prayers to Allah
five times a day, whether at home, on the street, in
the mosque, or on the desert. The visor, without
any argument, prevented this low obeisance.

The farmers, camel drivers, and other lowly
people had barely succeeded in having their wives
fashion for them sometimes pathetically amusing
home-constructed Pahlavi hats, when the Shah, in his
progressive strides, decided that western psychol-
ogy could more easily be conformed to if the dress,
as a whole, was in accordance with the international
mode of the day. This led to another decree, accord-
ing to which all men must wear modern felt or straw
hats. This worked a hardship for the poor. Several
times, passing along the road outside the capital, I
saw a Pahlavi hat, awkwardly made of homespun
cloth and goatskin leather, and a source of pride to
its owner, snatched off his head and torn up by the
road police, because the man was not following the
Shah's latest order concerning hats. Some farmers,
whom I saw in a northern province, in their eager-
ness to obey had gone to the local haberdashery to
be re-hatted and had returned to their fields wearing
poke bonnets or dashing derbies cocked over one
ear. Others, with unconscious coyness, concealed

q8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

tj

their features with scallop-brimmed straws similar
to those worn by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. All
sorts of hats had been bought up by the merchants
from the discarded stock of ladies* millinery, as well
as from men's shops. Not yet has the supply equaled
the demand, nor has the consumer fully understood
the peculiar qualities of the commodity. Due to the
cost of importation and a goodly profit, three-dollar
European hats are priced as high as ten dollars; the
wearer is compensated by pride in his expensive
headgear.

The new hats were so absurd when combined with
the dingy long coats, full trousers, slippers and san-
dals, that there was no resistance to the order that
western costumes should be adopted in full. There-
fore, overcoats, neckties, collars, socks, shoes, fedora
hats, have put in an appearance. Stetson hats are
the latest vogue. The crowds mill around the new
shop windows, struggling to have a better view,
nudging one another and giggling over the queer
new wares.

It was amusing and a little pathetic to see people
constantly standing on the sidewalk near the entrance
to the Grand Hotel in Teheran. They wanted to
observe the manner in which farangi, foreigners,
carried themselves, walked, talked, dressed, arranged
their hair, carried their accessories; all of which were
whisperingly commented upon.

Every sensation to which we are accustomed is new
in Iran; there is even excitement over the arrival in
Teheran of a village lad. He has hardly shaken the
dust of three days or so of travel from his clothes

THE PEOPLE-AND TOMORROW 99

before he is surrounded by men who have not yet
become used to the excitement of seeing a bus come
in. They inquire where he is from, whether he
knows a relative of theirs who may live a day's jour-
ney away, where he is going. One such young man
replied: "Please direct me to the Alborz College.
I have come because my parents heard that it is an
American factory where they make men."

A bystander said to the young man, "You should
first see a shadow play which talks, in our new
moving-picture theater." But the boy was suffi-
ciently dazzled by the electric signs, the red and green
stop and go signals, the helmeted policemen direct-
ing traffic, the bicycles, automobiles, general bustle,
excitement, and the crowds on the streets, for he had
expected to see flocks of turkeys and herds of sheep
being driven home for the night.

These things were no more surprising to him than
they would be to an American student, if he arrived
in Teheran with an equally mistaken idea, expecting
to find there a place in which the lazy, listless life
of the Orient expresses itself in luxurious lounging
on divans, during entertainment by music and whirl-
ing dancers; a place where exotic food is served by
turbaned, obsequious slaves and servants. Instead,
he would find a country challenging to his ideals, on
a sound financial basis, with currency actually at a
higher rate of exchange than before the World War,
with no national debt, and seeking no outside capital
for the development of its natural resources.

The automobiles, which are numerous, are of
American make. Number-minded residents observe

ioo A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

the licenses and called my attention to the rapidly
mounting figures. The newer models are satisfactory
only for city use. Higher prices are paid for second-
hand cars, the older the better, because the bodies,
which are well above the ground, miss the bumps on
the rough country roads. The public automobile
drivers were at first imbued with a mania for speed.
Furthermore, keen for business, each desired to make
as many trips as possible between the various cities,
crowding into his vehicle as many passengers as he
could, and often charging an exorbitant rate. An
automobile owner found that within a few weeks his
new car had paid for itself, but inevitably, with such
rough treatment, the machine did not last long. The
drivers, instead of taking the trouble to make proper
repairs, tied with ropes whatever sagged or was
broken.

The village boys who come to Teheran and Is-
fahan for army training observe for the first time
not only the wonders of the cities, but many details
which they take home with them and so help to
urbanize the tiny towns. During their training and
education under the army officials, their contact with
the stream of progress enables them, when they re-
turn to their homes at the end of three years, to be-
come leaders. They take back new ideas regarding
the manners of adults and children, shops, foreigners
and thousands of other new impressions.

So the levels of knowledge, ambition, and better
living are rising in the remotest corners of the em-
pire. To a village lad, the factors of progressive
living are a tremendous revelation. To him Riza

THE PEOPLE-AND TOMORROW 101

Shah is what Ammon Ra was to the Egyptians. His
rise wipes out Iran's Dark Ages in one life span.

The growing democratic spirit is due in part to
the confidence it gives to all soldiers to know that
their high commander rose from the ranks of the
Army. Now they realize that all things are attain-
able. No one is compelled to live and die in the
class in which he or she was born. There is a grow-
ing middle class, as is necessary in a modern economic
state. Producers, formerly peasants, merchants, and
consumers now have common interests.

It is invigorating to see men who have long been
inclined toward indolence, avoiding work and re-
sponsibility, now showing energy and strength in
accomplishing their tasks. Energy! The East seems
to have found it, at last. Perhaps this is because
they have a great and attainable goal.

VIII

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS

IRAN'S isolation has produced problems both dra-
matic and peculiarly her own, which can be com-
prehended only in part even by one who has been
in personal touch with the life of the country.

The reconstruction of a nation and a people is a
gargantuan task. It requires labor that must be
insistent and determined; even violent effort is, at
times, necessary, so that movement advances along a
straight line, unopposed; some are sure to resent it,
others to resist. Riza Shah Pahlavi has learned this,
but his devotion to his ideal is firm. He has neither
retreated nor halted.

This rugged general and statesman will have Iran,
on Iranian terms, catch up with the West and
flourish. He has studied not only the models of the
West, but also the contributions of Confucianism
and Hinduism. And he knows the inherent values
in the character of his own people. Theoretically
under a constitutional republic and an elected par-
liament, the country is actually under him as an ab-
solute commander-in-chief, dictating what he is con-
fident will form at length a new country, worthy of
its traditions and able to meet the rest of the world
on modern terms.

A new society is evolving. When he marched into

102

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 203

the capital in 1921, politics and government were
disorganized and corrupt. There could be little
group honesty in the long-existent system by which
the princes believed themselves legitimately privi-
leged to collect taxes from their villagers and not
transmit them to the national treasury. It was a
dark hour, but proved to be the darkness before the
dawn. For there was a group of high-minded, sin-
cerely patriotic men who opposed this abuse of power
and feudal individualism, who welcomed the vision
of their far-sighted ruler, and realized that, if prog-
ress were to be effective, new ideals of conduct, gov-
ernment, and honesty must come into the national
consciousness.

The four years of excellent work of the American
Financial Administration under Dr. Millspaugh
gave those for whom they worked and those who
worked with them a thorough knowledge of eco-
nomic responsibility and the basic importance of
efficient and honest organization. These Americans
demonstrated the need of knowing accurately con-
ditions relating to finance in all classes of the popu-
lation, and insisted that every citizen pay taxes
according to the value of his resources. They con-
stantly combated the idea of special dispensations;
this caused formerly privileged princes to revolt
against the regulation. But the courageous Shah
stood valiantly behind Dr. Millspaugh and his asso-
ciates and helped them to insure reforms such as
bringing accounts up to date, discovering shortages,
and stopping leaks.

The evasion of national taxes was so general that

104 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

it was difficult for the wealthy to realize that they,
also, should share in the responsibility for govern-
mental improvements. It had long been the custom
for them to build high mud walls around their es-
tates. The object was in part that they might be
protected from thieves, sand storms, and military
attack; but it was also so that no tax collector or local
governor might see how lavish were the apartments
and gardens behind the walls.

Independent in their attitude, the princes had to
learn what was meant by a modern cooperative state.
Today rebellious offenders among them are promptly
sent to prison if they are found guilty of using the
dignity, property, or secrets of the state for personal
profit or aggrandizement. No longer are there court
favorites; even the elaborate honorary titles have
been abolished.

Through long centuries, in fact until the reign of
the present Shah, the agriculture of the country was
in a state of feudalism akin to that of Europe in the
Dark Ages. Great efforts are being made to bolster
and nationalize agriculture, which, however, stub-
bornly clings to its feudal self-sufficiency to such an
extent that in some sections there has been slight
change from medieval conditions. The workers are
in a position similar to that of the tenant farmers of
England. The "absentee" landlords who live off the
revenues of these districts are, however, becoming
progressive, in that they now realize that they must
be more considerate of the workers; they also co-
operate with the government in road-making and in
building of schools and hospitals.

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 105

Modernizing o streets and buildings is well under
way in many small towns. Engineering and archi-
tecture go hand in hand. Much village property
passes temporarily under government ownership.
People who possessed squalid village houses on cites
favorable for shops and residences, have been com-
pelled to accept in payment whatever the govern-
ment thought a fair price for the property. Then,
as if Aladdin waved his wand, a model town has
appeared. The former inhabitants now rent the
newly built shops and houses at a higher rental than
is asked for alcoves in the bazaar, or than their former
homes cost; but the changed manner of living stim-
ulates the sale of many goods never before needed,
so the shopkeepers are not only more comfortable,
but their sales have increased also. State agents col-
lect the rentals, the money being returned to the
treasury for further reconstruction work; in this way
many villages have been transformed.

This action must, however, proceed slowly, not
only because it is an expensive plan, but, as it tends
to dispossess land owners who are the most educated
and enlightened group in the nation, it means a con-
siderable and immediate reduction in their incomes
without, as yet, offering them a chance to invest their
money in capitalistic enterprises of industry. Here,
then, is a major problem of progress.

Contracts are now drawn without injustice to land-
owner or land-worker. It is popular education
which is teaching individual rights, assisting the
formation of character, promoting industrial devel-
opment, and promising benefits eventually to all.

io6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

In this the Shah's hope is to change a medieval agra-
rian civilization to a modern, industrial society.
Formerly, the only developed industry was rug-
inaking by hand, which was carried on on a large
scale in two places only, Sultanabad and Kirman.
Of late, rug factories, using pure Iranian patterns,
have been set up in Kermanshah, Tabriz, and several
other cities. The government is making every effort
to institute and stabilize industrialization through
state capitalism, however unfavorable the character
of the land and the resources are for any rapid
changes in this factor of national self-reliance.

Cumbersome transportation has added vastly to
the expenses of production and sale of goods, but
freight trains are on their way. While home indus-
tries are being encouraged, at the same time a few
sugar factories are being erected in different sections,
and spinning mills have been set up in several of
the cities with adjoining mills for textiles and piece
goods. Efforts are being made to organize and build
satisfactory leather, hosiery, match, cement, and
sacking factories.

Iran is rich in natural resources oil, tin, silver,
coal and precious stones in great quantities the last
four as yet untouched. The completion of the Trans-
Iranian railway, and the development of her mineral
wealth, will, in time, enable Iran to take her place
among the great industrial nations. Petroleum was
first used here. Herodotus, Strabo, and Plutarch
mentioned the inflammable pools of bitumen which
had attracted the attention of Alexander the Great.

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 107

In Zoroaster's time, the seepage of oil in the north-
west supplied the fire temples.

The Shah knows that to arouse the national con-
sciousness of his people, diversified in temperament
and in occupation, there must be standardization.
He has put an end to the annual migration of the
Lurs, Bakhtiari and Kashgai, because freedom with
them too often had become lawlessness and, in main-
taining their independence, they had too scant a con-
sideration for that of other people.

While tribal unrest was menacing the government,
the Shah invited a number of the leading chiefs to
Teheran for an unlimited stay, on the theory that a
royal request is a command. This introduced them
to urban life for a time sufficiently long to make a
roving, unsettled life less interesting than the de-
lights of the city. While there they came to under-
stand the great benefits of the changes the Shah is
making, and really to admire him, although formerly
they, being aristocrats in their own communities, had
looked down a trifle on the soldier who rose from
the ranks. Now 150,000 members of these tribes
have been settled in well-planned villages.

When a high official ventured to suggest that the
tribal way of living was very picturesque and that
it would be a loss if Iran should become just like
all other countries, the Shah's answer was: "We are
not here to be picturesque. We must have improve-
ment in education, in health, and in the production
of food for our people. Dreamy poets, philosophers,
and artists will always be in Iran/'

io8 A DOCTORS HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Besides giving coins to beggars, another custom is
potent in encouraging mendicancy. It is the habit
of families to make periodical gifts of bread, nuts,
sweets, etc., to the poor on Thursday night, the eve
of the Moslem Sabbath. This is done also on the
anniversary of a death, and is considered equivalent
to our "ten-per-cent alms/' It was enjoined by the
Prophet as a method of acquiring merit and of pro-
viding for the poor of his day.

Now, however, a sense of systematic humanitarian
treatment of the lower classes is being awakened.
Consciousness of the duties of all members of society
to one another and of their interdependence is new,
but it is being welcomed and practised in such so-
cieties as the "Red Lion and the Sun," and other
patriotic organizations. Days of health, happiness,
and prosperity are indeed breaking in Iran. The
Shah's methods have, at times, original finesse. It
is related that, after having two famous bandits
arrested, he invited them to dine with him at the
royal palace and extended to them every courtesy,
in order to observe their psychology and learn much
of national importance, and then he had them
hanged. This they richly deserved, for murder and
robbery had been for years their exciting, successful
method of maintaining themselves. He considered
it would be stupid to have them tortured to gain
their confessions.

The new laws destroy further possibility of foreign
dominance. No outsiders are entitled to own land
or immovable property except what is needed for a
dwelling-place or business. Registration of all land

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 109

Is compulsory, and offices for this have been opened
In all the towns.

The abolition of the hated "capitulations/' i.e.,
concessions granted at the demand o England and
Russia, has completely changed the status of the
foreigner. By the treaty of Lausanne, when new
Iran demanded for itself just recognition and fair
play, the Shah insisted upon readjustment, or can-
cellation, of these capitulations, whose very name
suggested injustice to Iranians and was hateful to
them. While they were in force, foreigners had a
privileged position. Many of them were wealthy and
yet they were able to avoid their local responsibili-
ties, while living in, trading in, and claiming the
protection of Iran. As a result of the new laws,
however, they have been compelled to sell their prop-
erty or to become Iranian subjects.

The new Trade Monopoly Act has undoubtedly
imposed irksome restrictions on the foreign trader,
for it prohibits the importation by him of many
goods which Iran needs, but is at present unable it-
self to produce. It has also been hard on the home
merchant who would gladly sell these things. It is,
however, in the interest of eventual economic inde-
pendence, for it will encourage home industry and
help to stabilize the treasury. The Act has not lacked
results. Only a few years ago, it seemed as though
Russia would capture the Iranian market. The ba-
zaars and shops were flooded with Russian goods at
prices so low that competition was impossible.
Iranian merchants were threatened with bankruptcy.
To meet this the Shah caused new factories to spring

no A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

up in various parts of the country. To equip these,
no restriction was placed upon the importation of
machinery, o which, in 1935, Iran imported almost
$4,000,000 worth from the United States, and in 1937
heavily from Germany and Russia.

Riza Shah has been insistent upon routing foreign
influence. Like the Jews in the days before Cyrus,
he says: "It is not for us and you to build a house
. . . We ourselves alone will build." He knows that
national salvation can come only through the efforts
of his countrymen themselves.

An Iranian official told me: "It is generally con-
ceded that neither Britain nor Russia ever aimed to
give effective support, except insofar as it furthered
their own imperialistic claims and interests. Since
the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Iranians
have thus interpreted almost every act of the British
Government, for, they argue, 'Did not the advance
of their interests aim at the destruction of our inde-
pendence?' The first steps toward the creation of
prestige and a British party were taken at a time
when it was feared that Napoleon intended to attack
India through Iran. British trade in the Gulf of
Persia goes back to the eighteenth century, while
her special privilege in the country dates from a still
earlier time."

The economist who explained the present situa-
tion to me continued:

"In 1919 Great Britain, having aided the detach-
ment of an ancient province of Iran, Baluchistan,
attached it to India, and, as Britain gained control of
the mineral oil wealth of the Southwest, she sought

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS in

a mandate over the entire southern section of the
country. It was obvious that, with British-controlled
Palestine and Iraq on one side, and Baluchistan on
the other, nothing is more probable than that she
Intended to make half of Iran her own, in order to
establish her unimpeded overland route to India,
especially now that the Ethiopian crisis has proved
the precariousness of the Red Sea Route.

'In 1921 the British were against our present
ruler; at the time of the coup d'etat, the Prime
Minister, who was a nationalist and a popular jour-
nalist, appointed Riza Minister of War. England
was definitely against this cabinet and demanded an
election, hoping the Anglophile party would win and
appoint a leader who, influenced by British wealth
and power, would place In key positions men favor-
able to her. A reelection was held and the national-
ists won. Riza became Prime Minister and when
later, by the demand of the people, he became Shah,
England decided that a policy of friendliness was
advisable. When he ascended the throne in 1925,
it was with their full approval and sympathy. Not,
however, until 1932 when his individual position
was strengthened by widespread public support, did
he venture to defy Britain and annul concessions that
seemed to him entirely too one-sided.

"In 1932 there was an issue of new currency notes.
These marked a tremendous step toward self-deter-
mination. Previously, the Imperial Bank of Persia,
a British-endowed and controlled institution, had
the sole right of printing currency notes. That con-
cession was withdrawn. The new notes bear the

m A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

stamp of the National Bank of Iran. The Indo-
European Telegraph Department was likewise a
British concession from the days of Nasir-ed-Din, but
now all inland telegraphing is under the Iranian
Government/*

The economist went on to say that Britain's exploi-
tation in the southern petroleum fields of Khuzistan
led her to take an active part in the political life
of Iran, the valuable concession having been granted
to her in 1906. Under this the Iranian Government
was to receive only 1 6 per cent of the net profits, but
the arrangement was not satisfactory. The "net
profits" included what was left after all the annual
expenses of the company were deducted; and the
latter increased rapidly in the twenties, until it was
difficult to be sure whether or not a fair royalty was
being paid. It was obvious that since the business
had increased extensively, they were able to pay far
more than they were paying. Furthermore, the Shah
disliked seeing his most profitable national resource
in the hands of foreigners. Why should not Iran
herself drill and sell what was rightfully her own?

As a result, the government abruptly canceled the
concession in 1932, stating that the action was justi-
fied Because the privilege had been granted under a
former regime that had been superseded by the
present government, and was unjust in that the
royalty was too meager for such valuable property.
England protested violently; Iran agreed to place
the dispute before the Council of the League of
Nations. In debate, her advocate, Mirza Ali Khan
Davar, made a splendid showing against Sir John

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 113

Simon. Private discussions between the principals
followed under the guidance of Edward Benes, the
Czechoslovak Foreign Minister, and on February 2,
1933, an acceptable adjustment was made. In ac-
cordance with the Shah's demand, direct negotiations
between his government and the company were re-
sumed and the British Government dropped out of
the dispute.

Sir John Cadman, Chairman of the Anglo-Iranian
Oil Company, arrived by air in Teheran on April 3
with his staff of experts. Meanwhile the Iranian
government had engaged an American geologist,
Swiss and English legal experts, and an expert En-
glish accountant as advisers. In conference it was
pointed out to Riza that in the present transition
state of his country it was unlikely that Iran would
be able to administer the oil fields as expertly as did
the company which had been there for so many years,
with its world markets established, and with the most
competent engineers in charge. The Shah agreed,
but gave evidence of his energy and bluntness by
requiring that a settlement be reached within a week.
Under this spur the terms of a new concession, to
run for sixty years, were quickly agreed upon and
signed on April 30, 1933.

Under the terms of the new lease, the area of the
concession was half the previous area until 1938, and
thereafter 100,000 square miles. Under the earlier
concession, the area covered 500,000 square miles.
The company pays four shillings a ton on oil sold
in Iran or exported, with a minimum annual pay-
ment of 750,000 (13,750,000). Twenty per cent

H4 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

of the net profits of the company, whether made In
Iran or abroad, is paid annually to the government
after the payment of 671,000 ($3,355,000) to the
stockholders. The company also pays 225,000
($1,125,000) in annual taxation during the first fif-
teen years of the new lease, and will pay 300,000
(| 1,500,000) during the second fifteen years, with the
subsequent amount to be agreed upon.

Gulf of Mexico or Rumanian prices, whichever
may be lower, are the basic price of oil sold within
Iran. Oil sold to the public, from the refinery, is
10 per cent less and to the Iranian Government is
25 per cent less. The company is now forced by
Shah Riza to spend 10,000 (150,000) a year edu-
cating Iranians in Great Britain, in order to replace
progressively its foreign employees by these young
men. Toward the expenses of the government's oil
representative in London the company must pay
2000 ($10,000). Finally, in full settlement of all
claims on grounds of equity or otherwise, the sum of
1,000,000 ($5,000,000) was paid to the Iranian
Government, and the royalties for the years 1 93 1 and
1932 were recomputed on the terms of the new con-
cession. "The British/' my informant pointed out,
"are astute traders, and the terms agreed on show
that past profits were enormous."

This settlement, after a long period of strained
relations, was satisfactory to both parties and pro-
duced a harmonious understanding, based upon
equality. Iran showed herself able to defend her
possessions. She now cannot receive less than five
million dollars a year in royalty, and the sum has

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 115

run above that minimum figure since the settlement
in 1933. This Is the greatest source of income for
the treasury and is used for roads, railroads, public
buildings, etc. The hard bargain has also been a
gain for the oil company, because it strengthened
its diplomatic position by establishing an easily com-
putable royalty and at the same time made It free
from prohibitive taxes which might otherwise have
been suddenly Imposed by the government. In the
event of the oil fields, which also exist in the north,
being developed by any other nation, the Anglo-
Iranian Oil Company will have no monopoly on the
pipe lines to the Gulf; however, no rival company is
likely to compete, as the distance and resulting ex-
pense for pipe lines from the north to the Gulf the
only outletis at present prohibitive.

Iran Is chiefly important to England in the scheme
of political strategy called the "defense of India," by
which England protects her routes, her markets, and
her citizens there. If she and Russia should ever
clash in war, Iran would become at once all-im-
portant. Incidentally, this makes clear why such a
large portion of the Iranian budget is allocated to
maintaining an army for self-defense.

It is said that the Iranian mind is as political as
the Polish or the Irish; it has realized that a British-
constructed railroad such as was proposed, built from
the South, would have been, to England, of more
importance from a military point of view than from
any other. Her possible ultimate conquest of the
country has been present in diplomatic minds for
more than a century; It has been advantageous to

n6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Iran long to delay the construction of her railroads.
Britain has, strategically, built a railway across Ba-
luchistan from India to Iran's border. "This," de-
clared the economist, "says to Iran: 'Beware, for
even in times of so-called peace, thoughts of conquest
weave in and out in the back of each country's mind/
We realize that our country is a focal point for all
Asia/'

Russia is no longer the menace she once was.
Under the Czars the bear made no effort to conceal
its purpose to conquer or seize and confiscate wher-
ever and whenever it was possible, without attempt-
ing to justify its actions. But the IL S. S. R., as a
fundamental tenet of its communistic ideology, de-
nounced aggression and imperialism at least until
the attack on Finland and restored all the Czarist
conquests to their true owners, even remitting Czar-
ist government loans. On February 26, 1921, the
Russo-Iranian treaty was signed, surrendering every-
thing the Russians held or claimed in Iran, with the
single exception of the Caspian Sea fisheries, which
are part of a nationalized industry circling the entire
sea; the profits from these were readjusted. This
treaty definitely liquidated all traces of the former
Czarist policy of oppression and paved the way for
a much closer understanding between the two
countries.

In 1 924 there was for a short time a communistic
party in Iran, but Lenin dissolved it when he found
that it made no converts. The farmer-peasants could
not understand its benefits; the artisan class was too
busy with daily handicrafts to take an active interest

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 117

In politics. The country is constructively working,
not geographically but in internal development, to-
ward a greater Iran, and the Iranians as a whole are
out of sympathy with the communistic idea; class an-
tagonisms, therefore, find no adherents.

All propaganda against Islam or against Iranism,
as Riza Shah conceives it, is strictly forbidden. Since
this order went into effect, the Christian missionary
program has been necessarily curtailed, since preach-
ing the Gospel is construed as anti-Islamic propa-
ganda. The explanation of the censorship is the
Shah's determination to keep his country unified
and cohesive during its difficult stage of reconstruc-
tion, a period in which discontent of a grumbling
minority cannot be risked.

An elaborate espionage system is now employed,
even abroad, to report back to Teheran what is said
about the Shah and the country. The withdrawal o
the Iranian Minister from the United States, after
his regrettable arrest by mistake for speeding in
Maryland, was in a measure due to the unjust com-
ments on Iran and the Shah which were printed in
a generally circulated American magazine, for the
Iranian government cannot believe that our govern-
ment allows an absolutely free press; it argues,
"Neither England nor any European country does/*

Unquestionably there exists a large and ever-in-
creasing number of people who are sincerely desirous
of better living conditions and stronger aims for
their national and personal life. They are glad to
accept the edicts of the Shah; the vast majority have
come to realize that measures which may seem dras-

ii8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

tic are designed purely to further their welfare; many
who were antagonistic at first have developed whole-
hearted approval and are as eager as their ruler to
have Iran make a fine impression on foreigners.

Feverishly the building goes on. One cannot help
asking, "What will all these men do when they have
completed the construction of New Iran?"

The answer is that for many years more labor will
be needed in increased demands and extension in all
directions.

A recent step has been the Ahwaz Dam, of which
an Iranian newspaper says; "Xerxes, 2500 years ago,
and Shahpur, 1500 years ago, both erected buildings
which have lasted so well that tourists still visit Iran
to see their remains. Today His Imperial Majesty,
the Savior of Iran, has ordered a dam built across
the Karun River at Ahwaz, so that its waters will no
longer freely run into the sea. In this way he has
created great wealth for Iranians, for thousands of
square kilometers of land in Khuzistan will become
fertile. The cost of this dam will be in the neigh-
borhood of 100,000,000 rials ($6,000,000). A few
years ago this amount represented the total income
of the annual budget of the country, and the thought
of such a project would have caused our bravest
leaders to tremble; but today our great Shah can
undertake this expensive project for the development
of agriculture without the least danger to other items
of expenditure. Khuzistan, after the construction
of this dam, will compete with Egypt and India. Its
broad acres are the best in the world for the growing
of cotton. Thus one province will enrich all."

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 119

The contagion of activity is inescapable. Men
and women are working toward a common ideal.
Local conservatives are being swiftly outnumbered.
Here is something very like the pioneer spirit in
America with belief in what, by their work, their
country will yield, conserve, and become.

Asia can and will catch up with the surging pro-
pulsion of the West. This leap across hundreds of
years is what makes the Middle East so fascinating
today, where one thousand years of accomplishments
elsewhere are transpiring in ten, as people step from
camels to fly into the air, and as women remove their
veils which have separated them from the world for
over a thousand years.

IX
LIFE IN THE BAZAARS

rjlHE contrast between the wealth of kings,
A princes, and other grandees of ancient courts,
and the poverty of those whose skill fashioned the
magnificent trappings is bridged by the bazaar in-
dustries. The poor must have found vicarious satis-
faction in the elegant appearance of royalty, and
have taken pride in their share in it and in the
thought that their rulers excelled all others in the
use of silver, gold, jewels and fine raiment; such
pride made their poverty less grim. The minds
which imagined and the skilful fingers which fash-
ioned beauty must have loved ornate decoration, as
well as chaste designs, or they could not have brought
both into being.

Fathers and sons devote their time to manufac-
turing the beautiful wares to be found today in the
bazaars, which are, in effect, industrial villages in
which men do all the work, even the cooking. I went
there often in order to study everyday life.

Along the narrow, winding lanes, which go in all
directions between the little shops, people pass con-
tinually from dawn until sunset, when the great
gates are closed. Many stop to chat while squatting
with their backs close to the wall in order to let a

I2O

LIFE IN THE BAZAARS 121

loaded camel or donkey pass. The roofs over the
bazaars have mysterious passageways called * 'cat-
walks' 'where, paradoxically, "ducks may be
smelled." Plots have been organized or overheard
above the bazaars; death has been swift. When I
wanted to learn more, I was told, "Your heart is too
white to understand," an excellent way of closing the
inquiry. Some of the catwalks are precarious when
plaited palm leaves rest on bamboo supports, others
are covered with sheets of corrugated iron; brick
arches and arcades also appear. Now and then, where
lanes met, I looked up with surprise to find an artis-
tic tiled dome. Through the openings in the roof,
beams of light pass slantingly down in brilliant rays;
in these shafts dust motes dance, leaving the rest
dim. My eyes became used to this, and I was glad
to be in a cool, darkish place, away from the brilliant
sun, for after a few minutes I could see clearly a long
distance.

Occasionally courts opened out and I saw in one
a tile-rimmed pool under the shade of a blooming
tree where weary men might lie down. There were
a variety of little restaurants or food shops; some
sold fish; some fishheads or animals' entrails; others
provided bits of good meat on skewers; still others
had heads and feet of sheep, which were sold to por-
ters who earn very little.

Several times I made a point of being in the bazaar
at lunch time that I might observe the men cooking,
preparing, and selling food, and the manner in which
it was eaten. The baking of bread was the most
interesting. In village homes it is baked in a cir-

122 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

cular cement pit which widens out at the bottom.
In the bazaar the design is the same, but the position
reversed. I looked through the small oven door into
a glowing dome five feet in diameter heated by the
wood of thorn bushes. A handful of wheat and bar-
ley dough, which had been flattened by hand until
it was more than fourteen inches wide and one-fourth
of an inch thick, was deftly slapped with a paddle
against the hot vaulted interior/ It was quickly
browned and brought out on the paddle, which had
deposited beside it another circle of dough. These
were piled like gigantic batter cakes for sale and
quickly were carried away by purchasers on their
heads, under their arms, over their shoulders, ac-
cording to preference as to how you wear your bread!

The bread served many uses to scoop bright curry
soup from peacock-colored bowls, or to have a piece
torn off and wrapped around dates and cheese, or,
with a bit of rice and meat folded in, to make an
appetizing morsel. Food is abstemiously taken;
nearly everyone is thin. Luncheon was informally
peripatetic. Most men strolled around as they ate.
I saw one carrying a small bowl of vinegar into which
he dipped lettuce.

Large blue bowls of rice or white curds, long
strings of yellow and brown dates, and platters filled
with radishes were for sale. Pomegranates, large
and small, grapes and melons added to the color and
charm of the booths; everywhere, among vegetables
and other wares, vases of gladioli, poppies, phlox
and other flowers, according to the season, formed
color patterns as intricate and colorful as a jug from

LIFE IN THE BAZAARS 123

Yezd. Sweets were expensive. The sugar tax was
allocated toward the expense of railroad building
and was high, but what country can do without
sweets? There were cakes made o sugar, flour, and
pistachio nuts, decorated with a bit of artificial color
or candied fruits.

In many booths there were small oblong brass
charcoal stoves called mangals, at one end of which
was a little shelf for setting the teapot to simmer at
lunch time. Samovars, originally from Russia, have
long been made locally, and are much used. They
are carried when traveling.

From a domestic standpoint I was interested in the
section of the bazaar where wool is prepared to put
into bed covers which are used instead of blankets
and are called lahaf. Here there was the constant,
thin, shining noise of a bow four feet or more long,
which is used to beat the wool until it is fine and
soft. Deftly the back of the bow is steadied by one
hand and foot, the string is plucked up quickly and
falls sharply on the washed, and somewhat matted,
wool. The first time I saw one of these I thought
it was a musical instrument.

A small implement is used for making table legs,
parts of the water pipe, the kalyan or other wooden
articles to be rounded. This has a cord twisted
around a primitive mill, which operates in conjunc-
tion with a chisel held between the toes, as the ar-
tisan sits with one leg folded under him.

In the brass bazaars today one cannot help being
impressed by the pride which even the children take
in their work, to say nothing of its skill and quality.

124 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Small hammer strokes fashion an infinite variety of
lovely pierced patterns. Near the noise of the brass
and copper bazaars are the silent silver artisans,
where young boys help their fathers and older broth-
ers. Working at their fathers' handicraft, they
feel a sense of importance in participation in the life
of the shop. This provides safety and protection,
as it keeps them under supervision. Soon the schools
will absorb them. Heretofore industry has been the
means of development, and it had its value when it
was not taken advantage of by greedy parents.

The gold, silver, brass, and copper shops are back
of their sales rooms; groups of men are employed.
These are primitive places for manufacturing goods.
They can be reached by devious winding ways in the
vicinity; usually at the end of a narrow lane there
are very steep steps to climb, the lowest of which are
knee high.

Intimacy of life in the bazaar is its chief attraction.
Nowhere else can be seen all the necessities of life
ready for use and in all stages of production. In her
book, Persia, Romance and Reality, the English
writer O. A. Merritt-Hawkes says:

"The very heart of industry is here laid bare:
skins (to make your shoes) hang, almost alive, upon
the walls; you hear how many taps it takes to make
a jug; you see how much handling is necessary for
a vase, how much stirring to prepare a sweetmeat,
stitches to mend a carpet, care to cook a kabab. In
the West, shops are full of detached, non-human
products, but in the bazaar everything is intimately
allied to a particular man. The difference is im-

LIFE IN THE BAZAARS 125

mense, exciting, but whether the result Is happy or
not depends upon the point o view. These people
work so hard; some are there at half-past six, and
some are still working at nine at night; some very
young; only a few are very old."

In the bazaar, man is a craftsman, not a factory
worker. This sounds good, but the modern factory
is far better from the standpoint of health than these
dark, stuffy places; far better the certainty of a
weekly wage than the tragedy of such fierce compe-
tition. Little room after little room holds men who
are doing the same work, making the same stitches
in leather, inhaling the same clouds of fine wool
threads, the same dust from the earth, the same evil
fumes from dye-pots, deadened by the same noises
of hammer on copper and brass that have invalided
men like them throughout the centuries.

In semi-darkness children are mending carpets,
and in obscure corners tiny boys, little more than
babies, blow on recalcitrant charcoal which is the
only fire in all these miles of little shops. There is
darkness in bazaars, there are smells, the sight of
men's eyes grows dim; workers die young; little
children develop tuberculosis; many have eye dis-
eases; there is much blindness. The bazaar is pic-
turesque, but it would be better if all were as clean
as a few of the newer zones. Stores are superseding
them along the Lala Zar, in Teheran, the Chahar
Bagh in Isfahan, and other main streets which are
parked down the center; on these the small shops on
each side are both picturesque and healthful. Weekly
markets are reducing bazaar activities in foodstuffs.

is6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

I was drawn to an old man in the pottery bazaar
who had been patiently turning the same wheel for
forty years. His face was clear-cut, even aristocratic
in line. He worked with quiet dignity, apparently
oblivious of my observation. His pale brown skin,
acquiline nose and refined, sensitive face were such
as Omar Khayyam must have seen "in the market
place one dusk of day." Time after time he had to
reform a bowl or jug, the contour of which was not
just right. His son was more dexterous. He molded
with a light touch of finger, or of string, beautifully
shaped vases, some for flowers, and some to make the
bases of a drum-like musical instrument, called a
dombak. He kept particles of earth, which would
have deflected the modeling, off his fingers by dip-
ping them often into a bowl of water.

Another day I spent a fascinating hour in a far
recess of the bazaar in a half cave, large enough for
two camels to circle around four huge grindstones
forming two primitive mills, which cracked poppy,
millet, and sesame seeds. The chiaroscuro interior
was unique. Whole trees were used to make the
massive beams around four sides of this workshop.
The camels trod in a circle. Baskets were over their
eyes in order to keep them from becoming dizzy in
treading around and around. They did not have the
appearance nor the haughty bearing of caravan
camels, who lift their nostrils to scent the air, and
whose hair is worn off on the sides of their backs.
Instead, their coats were shaggy; they looked dowdy
and dispirited as they indifferently plodded along,

LIFE IN THE BAZAARS 127

much as a patient, weary mule would plod around
a similar mill.

After the sesame or other grains were cracked they
were shoveled with wooden shovels into large, flat
gunny sacks; these were piled on the far side of the
cave, one on top of another until the stack was three
feet high. The heavy hammer which pressed out the
oil was made of huge rocks hewn from the mountains
and tied together by thongs. These supplied the
necessary weight to pound down on the full bags.
But how were they lifted? The lever might have
been made by Cain and Abel. The bound rocks
were attached to the far end of a long beam made of
a huge tree; a heavy goat's-halr rope hung from its
near end. This lever was held aloft by the support-
ing trunks of two trees, which formed a fulcrum. To
reach the dangling rope three men, one after the
other, climbed a ladder. As each gained the top he
reached out, grasped the rope with both hands and
swung himself free. Quickly the weight of the second
and third was also shifted to the rope. All three hung
there, kicking and shouting together, "Ali, Alii"
Their united weight lifted the stone attached to the
far end of the great tree lever to a height of about
eight inches. At once a fourth man, standing on the
ground, put a sturdy pole into the next notch of the
winch, which thus held as much as was gained by
each of the oft-repeated efforts. These men swung
themselves back to the ladder and repeated their
maneuver. So, gradually the pounding stones were
lifted to a height of seven feet above the sacks, then,
by releasing the winch, they were allowed to fall

is8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

suddenly. By this slow method the oil was pounded
out.

The smell of camel and of rancid oil had made me
hesitate a moment as I entered this cavern. But the
fascination of the weird construction, the play of
light among the beams, the manner in which the
earth floor had been cut into various levels to facili-
tate the work, the neighboring dim room, all tempted
me to enter. In the farthest rooms were bins which
held the opium and millet seed to be pounded, and
the hay for the camels to eat. After an hour it was
with difficulty that I forced myself to leave and
return to the sunlight.

The bazaars of Tabriz are a delight. They are
tense with life from sunrise to sunset and filled with
strange wares. They are located in an old fortified
section of the city. Here are acres covered by vaulted
brick arches, roofed over and divided by miles of
long narrow passages which have alcove shops on
each side. I do not think the merchants and shoppers
could stand the crowding if there were not at in-
tervals wide openings into large courts containing
trees, and in each a large tank of water. These are
really small caravanserais where pack mules, camels,
and donkeys unload and sometimes lodge.

Along the narrow ways through the bazaar these
laden animals trudge, and a man walking before
them clears the way by crying a one-word phrase
much used also in India: "Khabardar!" (Take care!)

One day in Isfahan, after traversing with a friend
the dim winding ways of the bazaar, which covered
several acres, we came upon a large open place

LIFE IN THE BAZAARS 129

the sun shone down and men were gathered around
a pool; a place where camels and trains of donkeys
had come with their burdens of silk from Yezd, their
bales of rugs from Kerman, Meshed and other distant
places, to be here displayed and sold. The scene
was straight out of Hadji Baba's life. All types of men
were there; weary camel drivers, prosperous mer-
chants, little boys to help untie the bundles of silk,
wool and rugs; men to lift them from the animals'
backs and earn a few krans by holding up the mer-
chandise, piece by piece, that It might be well seen
while being bid on. Poor merchants who hoped to
find bargains; shrewd, experienced buyers, as well as
those who for the first time would test their discretion
by the quality and price of their purchases.

The bidders sat around the tiled pool, leisurely
smoking their water pipes and talking to each other.
Some asked for the roadside news collected by the
men who had just arrived and exchanged news on
what was happening. There was much friendly chat-
ter, for the sale was anticipated with the hope of fine
bargains; every one was In good humor. The camels
settled to their knees. The colors of the scene were
lively, for the costumes of the people had not yet all
changed to European styles. The goods for sale now
.being opened and spread out were of every hue, size,
and pattern. At the end of half an hour the auc-
tioneer, amid attentive silence, started the prices, to
my surprise, at top notch and gradually, slowly re-
duced them, so reversing the custom of our auctions.
The merchants appraisingly waited until a price was
mentioned which they were willing to pay, then they

igo A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

bid very quickly; immediately the sale was com-
pleted.

Each would have liked, no doubt, to wait until the
figure dropped a little lower, but there was the risk
that someone else would snap up the goods. There
was no screaming or contention, for if a piece was
lost it released money for bidding on something else,
Once I stood for an hour in the gallery of the New
York Stock Exchange, and I still recall with amuse-
ment the pandemonium on the floor; I prefer the
restrained financial excitement on margins in Iran.

The increasing numbers of shopkeepers and ar-
tisans in independent commercial life will cause the
rise of a powerful middle class, parallel to that which
arose in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. It means the eventual end of the sociable
and uncertain life of the bazaars and the beginning
of fixed prices and a fairer chance to live more com-
fortably. However, the public marketplace and the
bazaar, where all artisans make or bring their work
to sell, will probably not be entirely crowded out, as
they have a valuable social reason for remaining, for
each worker may proudly exhibit the fruits of his
labors there and enjoy bartering. A fixed price would
be an annoyance, because it would remove all possi-
bility of conversation, exchanges of opinion and
gossip. It is only in a modern society where the
tempo of life is faster that the prix fixe is a conve-
nience and a necessity. As long as, among the poorer
people, the rhythm of life is slow, the bazaars of
Mexico, India, and Iran will remain.

X

ALONG THE ROADS

RECALLING the liberating, long, and at times
monotonous roads I traversed in Iran, varied
and vivid impressions leap to mind. These roads
tied the mountains, the vast sterile uplands, and the
productive lowlands together with national and in-
ternational significance. Iran's central position re-
lates her closely to all of Asia, and as one reflects on
the desire of her citizens to develop and maintain the
independence o their country, and the different con-
tributions each section has to make, Iran seems no
longer a land essentially different from all others,
but one whose structure and ideals are universal.

The road from Isfahan lies through fields of
melons. Around Isfahan, in fact, melons of the finest
flavor are grown. The fields are fertilized with
pigeon manure. In order to collect this, many large
round towers have been in use for centuries. They
are built of clay and brick, smooth and symmetrical
on the outside. They are divided into commodious
pigeon compartments around the inner surface.
There are small windows for the myriad birds which
frequent them to fly in and out. The droppings are
collected from time to time and form a valuable
source of revenue.

i 3 2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

As we passed along the road, vines and melons lay
in abundance on the ground. Not only the famous,
large, almost round fruit which resembles a glorified
cantaloup, but huge watermelons also caused us to
look forward to a well-known chai khana where we
would stop to enjoy the luscious fruit. We passed
many poppy fields now bare, as that opium-bearing
flower is raised in the spring. Then the fields are as
white as if they were covered with snow.

There is increasing limitation of poppy cultiva-
tion, although its curtailment entails an economic
hardship on those who have no substitute crops. The
League of Nations study of this subject is producing
encouraging results, although each nation thinks it
alone should supply the amount medicinally needed.
Actually the best is grown in Iran. Here a general
agricultural program and industrial adjustment is
under way. Cereals, cotton, fruit, sugar, tea, tobacco
are being tried out as substitutes. Raising cotton is
particularly encouraged. A number of home spin-
ning mills are in operation, and the Iranian Govern-
ment, conscious of its duty, is showing remarkable
energy in correcting this age-old evil. Poppy cultiva-
tion is forbidden in many districts and reduced each
year.

The road still has its caravanserais. We stopped
at midnight along the road, walked around a dark
building, and entered a dimly-lighted fairyland. Here
little meandering rivulets burbled, on the banks trees
were growing. A lantern hanging on one, and the
new moon, gave sufficient light for us to find our
way. Many quiet-voiced men had spread their rugs

ALONG THE ROADS 133

and were sitting on their heels or reclining as they
talked. From the shadowy far side, grapes, melons,
and bits of meat threaded on skewers, which had
been cooked over a charcoal fire, were being served
with large thin flaps of bread. We sipped freshly
made tea, ate delicious melons which had been
cooled by being packed deep in the earth surrounded
by ice brought from the mountain caves. The scene
was idyllically Iranian. The gentle voices and quiet
companionship, the informal relaxation without sac-
rifice of good manners, the occasional amused laugh
all was as it had been for many centuries. Gradu-
ally some wayfarers departed and others took their
places. It was an hour, a gracious memory which
time could not dull.

We rode through the night, past closed caravan-
serais and sleeping villages, through jagged moun-
tains and along desert stretches, watching the march
of constellations across the sky while we crept so
haltingly across great spaces.

The mountain trails are well worn. From their
summits the birth and death of innumerable days
have been pondered over by peasants, poets, and
philosophers. On the high plateau cities with old
cultures and interesting customs were weeks away
from each other. In myriads of quaint villages
people and animals still survive or perish, according
to water supply. A stream may have changed its
course, in which case the ruins of mud walls showed,
as we journeyed on, where a village had been.

Many of Iran's towns make modern the oldest of
the supposedly antique habitations of Europe. With

i 34 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

the vicissitudes of time, these have waxed and waned,
but have never been fully deserted. They still re-
tain memories and records of the past. Ray, Istakhar,
Shushan, Ecabtana, Hamadan, Isfahan, Kazvin, Susa
and Shiraz have all been capitals of the country at
different times.

The rise and fall of cities, the beginning and end
of villages, all seem to drift in and out of the desert
as we traverse it at night. Time loses its inexorable
hold on the mind. There is no sound but the bark-
ing of a sheep dog, the howl of a wild animal, and
far-off the comforting tinkle of donkey bells. When
the Israelites, Mohammedans, Tamerlane and Turks
came across these deserts, they stopped at the same
oasis which refreshed us, and met the same sort of
people.

In the winter months it rains often. Then travel
is free from heat and dust, but the roads are often
impassably blocked by snow. There are compensa-
tions in summer travel, in coming to know the life
of the country people. For them there are no home-
stead worries. When they wish to move, all they
have to do is to take down the woodwork to use
again, and as mud is plentiful, straw and labor cheap,
a new house is soon built.

A resourceful woman we passed had temporarily
diverted a stream by damming up the water with
mud from the road. This resulted in a little reser-
voir in which she washed dishes, her clothes, and
her lettuce. When she had finished, she removed
the dam and swept the ground in front o her mud

ALONG THE ROADS 135

house with leafy lilac branches which her husband
had made into a broom for her.

A bus dashed by and it was filled to overflowing.
The driver seemed to me reckless. Perhaps the alti-
tude is over-stimulating and made him exuberant.
The driver's motto seems to be to enjoy the moment,
no matter what may happen along the road. Three
companies went bankrupt in one year insuring buses.
I am inclined to agree with the man who told me:
"As an all-round investment nothing equals a camel,
for when it is born it costs nothing, it finds its own
food, wears far longer than an automobile, needs no
repairs, can carry passengers and freight, is always
reliable, goes well on rough roads and in the sand,
needs no garage, gas or oil; receives water at conve-
nient times and places and uses it economically; when
too old to work it becomes a religious sacrifice, after
which its meat can be eaten. Its skin is useful for
many purposes, its bones are used for jewelry, both
carved and painted. In comparison, what value is
an automobile? It cannot even reproduce itself!"
Another advantage is that those who ride high on
camels cannot be annoyed by beggars as persistently
as those in automobiles or on foot.

Beggars are an invariable part of the roads of Iran.
They are everywhere. The Mohammedan custom
of indiscriminate almsgiving has created and en-
couraged a class of beggars who at their best were
analogous to our gypsies and at their worst are an
ambitionless lot of imposters or the dregs of a mis-
taken system of civilization. These poorly nour-
ished incompetents are to be found in other coun-

13 6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

tries, where the lower classes have had no hope of
improving their condition; but only the Moham-
medan, Buddhist and Hindu religions have built
begging into their system of ethics. The modern
Zoroastrians, the Parsees, have no mendicants; they
provide work for all who can perform it, and require
it to be accomplished. Their sick poor are properly
cared for.

The present Shah is attempting to put a stop to
the degenerate practice of beggars stopping all who
traverse the highway and importuning them for alms.
Their needs in the future will be met in other ways,
but in this transition period the road guards warn
and then clout the most persistent. The mendicants
are well organized and time their lives to solicit and
divide the donations they extort from those who pass
their hovels.

In order to meet this tenet of their religion, Moham-
medans carry a pocket full of change to distribute;
their fingers fairly drip tips from the moment they
start until they reach their destination. As I trav-
eled through the night, it was disconcerting to have
horrible, poverty-stricken beggars stand around the
car and thrust their often diseased arms before my
face. Their pitiful thin hands were never clean.
An old woman, with scraggy white hair half covering
her face and hanging around her shoulders swept
animal droppings into her ragged apron to use for
fuel and then came whining to the car. The Shah
has given orders to attack this evil from both sides,
by reforming economic conditions and by establish-
ing homes for the indigent. Will they stay in them?

ALONG THE ROADS 137

No. Not a day, unless forced by the police. They
prefer the dramatic appearance and appeal of their
profession, as well as Its sociability.

In controlling these privileged characters, the Shah
has not received much cooperation, for the effort of
the police to keep beggars from annoying travelers
Is neutralized by the superstition of the donors, who
believe they acquire a merit by giving. As Indis-
criminate almsgiving has been a part of religion, the
Importunate beggars consider they do a favor In ex-
tending the opportunity to give, receive the gift as If
it were their reasonable due, and continue to enjoy
the freedom and uncertainties of their profession.

The road to Shiraz leads through the desert, past
the great salt lake. The city lies in a fertile plain
surrounded by high mountains, the lights on which
change so constantly that in the course of a day and
night they express every variance of nature and every
human emotion. It has been said of them most fit-
tingly, "They have a series of exquisite cadences from
dawn to sunset. They are near the city in the morn-
ing, move away at noon, and at night come back as
If to enclose and protect their child.* *

The mountains cannot be ignored. In the morn-
Ing they seem to vibrate, to turn to iridescent glass;
changing, thus, every hour until at last in the eve-
ning they beckon drowsily with soft lights. At their
feet cypresses and pines stand in long rows. The
trees are so tall and green that you know beneath
them are "pleasant watercourses/' Nothing could
be more refreshing to gaze upon, nor can anyone

i 3 8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

who has not experienced It imagine how precious
every leaf on every tree becomes after sultry days on
the desert. Even the mud walls lining the streets
are touched at sundown with twilight enchantment.
One can understand why this city for nearly a thou-
sand years has been famous for its poets.

The road passes through an opening in the hills
called Tang Akbar. It is so narrow a defile it could
easily be barricaded and defended, making the moun-
tains a natural fortress for Shiraz, which was once
the capital of the Empire. It now has a population
of approximately thirty-five thousand inhabitants.

We drove slowly along our winding road to the
famous Tong Gate, built across the narrow moun-
tain road. This gate is built out from the mountain-
side and is to Shlraz what the city gate was to me-
dieval Europe, for along the top of it soldiers have
been stationed, and when the gates close at night,
guards rest and watch in the alcove rooms on its
city side. Over the center of this gate, flanked on
each side by a masonry terrace, is a sacred structure
built in the form of a shrine; open, however, as the
old fire temples used to be, on all four sides. This
was built for, and contains only, a marvelous copy
o the Koran, weighing one hundred and twenty
pounds, lying open upon a strong supporting stand.
Here the sacred flame is the word of God. It is said
to have been written by Hasan, the Second Imam,
on sheepskins especially prepared. To show their
veneration for this holy book and in order to be
guarded by it from evil, the citizens of Shiraz cele-
brate every new moon except that which occurs

ALONG THE ROADS 139

during the mourning month of Muharram-- by pass-
ing in a procession through this gate. The road is
then^ overcrowded with people on foot, in carriages,
and in cars, who thus receive a blessing and, in rec-
ognition of their Zoroastrian inheritance, show re-
spect and reverence for the moon.

The curving mountain road slopes down to the
valley city. Here one can see the Kuh-i-dena Moun-
tains and at their base the ruins of an ancient palace
and its gardens, restored in part and used for bar-
racks. The romance of the past has given place to
the modern magic of a wireless tower stationed
nearby.

The mood of Shiraz is one of beauty, poise, calm,
an intangible feeling of unworldliness which is
quietly soothing and uplifting. It has a different
rhythm, a different music from other Iranian cities.
In Isfahan the dogs on dark nights howl and bark
in the streets, jackals sneak thievingly around, and
men at nine o'clock sing as they walk between the
high dim walls to keep the jinns away; while the
dwellers in Shiraz silently listen to the nightingale
as he serenades his mate, the roses, the moon, the
world-weary; and in Teheran automobiles move
swiftly along the streets and social life as we know
it increasingly holds sway.

In the first glow of an early morning, we took the
road to Resht. The journey over the Alborz Moun-
tains and along the shores is said to be the best in
Iran. After crossing the desert, the thought of far-
reaching blue waters, which I had as yet seen only in
mirage, appealed strongly to me.

140 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

The magnificent mountains, which are the scenic
backdrop of Teheran, must first be crossed. With
swift tiger bounds our car leaped up the sharp turns,
snarling a bit as it clung to the steeps, and growling
as its gears shifted. Across the intervening moun-
tains, one sees Mount Damavend, In all its clearly
outlined majesty it towers 20,000 feet high, while
Fujiyama, which it closely resembles, measures only
12,362 feet. They both mount with a graceful unin-
terrupted sweep to culminate in a summit, conical
and absolutely symmetrical. The automobile rose
in a series of steep, switch-back turns to the summit
of our mountain roads. These mountains, snow-
capped in summer in the higher ranges, are as majes-
tic as the Himalayas or the Rockies.

The road from Kara] to Chalus was filled with
mountain magic, the air sweet and fresh. At 10,000
feet above sea level, we soared over the pass at
Rendevan. Far below gleaming threads of water>
which were in reality wide streams, were forming a
vast, lacy pattern in silver.

Past the crest, which for the moment seems truly
the top of the world, the road swoops down in a
long, graceful curve to a point above and almost
opposite the northern entrance of the first railroad
tunnel.

Below is a camp, with forges, kitchens, and equip-
ment for months of camping, chief among which was
that for the raising and carrying of water, for work-
men must be near water. Its blessings, however, are
in this land tempered by dangers from malaria,
typhoid, and other water-borne diseases.

ALOXG THE ROADS 141

It Is not unusual for difficult engineering to be
measured by the lives of men per mile it costs. Yet,
in spite of this toll of human lives, there is some-
thing constructive to measure against the loss, for
extraordinary technical problems have been met in
the mountain grades and the spiral tunnels. In
grading, as many as 6930 feet in 70 miles have been
gained, a magnificent feat. Maintenance of this
gradient within the permissible limit of two and
eight-tenths per cent has necessitated the construc-
tion of the unusual tunnels. In not a few instances,
no less than three sections of track are situated one
above the other on the same mountain slope.

With the exception of a few extremely short
stretches of narrow-gauge line, this railway is the first
in this most ancient land. Everyone was talking
about it. It was going to run on schedule! That
was novelty, indeed. And one of the leading news-
papers came out with this startling announcement:
"One of the twelve new locomotives which have re-
cently been purchased and landed at Bandar Shah
has now come to Sari. It has 20 wheels and will
climb mountains/'

The peasants, accustomed only to trails and travel
by camel, are still excited over even a short bus ride,
so they find the railroad a glamorous addition to their
country, and surround it with poetry and drama,
from its inception to the great moment which may
be compared with the meeting of our East and West
when the "iron horse" first made its way along the
gleaming rails. Purposely, save in Teheran, the
railroad has no stations in the larger cities, for it is

1 4 2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

not the wish of the sagacious ruler to do away with
other forms of transportation.

The ordinary roads follow the ancient trade routes
along which the towns were built. The present area
of Iran being two and a half times that of Texas, It
would be difficult, on account of deserts and moun-
tains, to defend; therefore, not until Iran was certain
of its Independence from Russian and British aggres-
sion, was it safe to build this railroad, along which
the enemy as well as friends might come,

On this trans-Persian railway, 100,000 troops can
be moved quickly, wherever needed; and, as the men
of Mazanderan are said to be more personally de-
voted to the Shah than are any others, because of his
having been born in this section, he knows that they
will go willingly at his command, on this new "fly-
ing carpet" over the Alborz Mountains to any dis-
turbed area. Economically, it means that products
from the Caspian littoral rice, wheat, cotton, tea,
silk can go to Europe not only via the Persian Gulf,
but from a near point, and that en route they can
be transferred to trucks for Baghdad and Haifa. As
a result, it is believed that economic and hence politi-
cal dependence upon Russia can cease.

Passengers and freight can now make ship-rail
connection at Bandar Shah, the southern port, named
for the Crown Prince, and do not have to land, as
formerly, at Basra, In the neighboring country of
Iraq. This highway is of incalculable value to the
food supply of the desert plateau, for the northern
provinces are the most fertile lands in the entire
country. The new road shortens the distance by

ALONG THE ROADS 143

half, and reduces the time to such a degree that
transported food, sheltered from the sun and sand,
will reach Its destination without deterioration.
Criticism has been made that, for the cost of the
railroad with its 88 tunnels and 108 bridges for the
short stretch from Mazanderan to Teheran, there
could have been built wide and durable cement
highways between all the principal cities of Iran.

But there are advantages on the side of the rail-
road, and It is remarkable that no loan has been re-
quired to finance Its building. It has been paid for
in full by the national tax on tea and sugar. The
next need will be a railway to connect the Iraq bor-
der with Isfahan and Meshed. There are a number
of business men who regret that a cross-country rail-
way was not planned, as it could have followed the
valleys Instead of crossing so many mountain ranges;
but the Iranians do not wish to facilitate the trans-
port of British or German soldiers across their coun-
try from Iraq to India. The ports on the north and
south are more easily controlled and defended.

The railroad has great strategic value, for It en-
ables the Shah to go quickly wherever he is needed.
It not only can transport soldiers and munitions to
the north and south, but can facilitate their transit
to any section from which attack Is likely to come.
Its value is as a trade artery, from which many roads
radiate through the country.

As the road descends the green northern slopes of
the mountain, crystal waterfalls cascade/ and little
streams meander through the lush grass. The road
penetrates forest land for a few miles, and then

i 44 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

emerges upon the beach. Occasionally a snake darts
from the road where it is sunning itself, or the tail
of a fox or a mountain leopard is seen for a brief
instant, flashing in hurried flight across the way.

There are few more scenically beautiful roads in
the world than this, for it skirts the Caspian shore
all the way from Meshed-i-Sar to Rud-i-Sar more
than 150 miles. The densely wooded northern slopes
ascend heavenward in many patterns, or open in a
succession of terraces to make way for rich rice fields
or for the cultivation of cotton and tea. When the
varied charm of Iran has become known to the world,
its spiritual and geographic moods and its astonish-
ing range of scenery, this road will be a Mecca for
those who are sensitive to beauty.

This new road passes near some of the oldest
inhabited sites of Iran, such as the town of Sari. It
was known to the ancients as Phanaca. Here Alex-
ander the Great, in his epic march into Asia, halted
fifteen days and offered sacrifices to his gods. In
A.D, 910 the city was burned by Russian Slavs and
three centuries later it was sacked by Mongols. As
if this were not tragedy enough, its inhabitants were
massacred by Tamerlane's followers, who coveted
this productive land. Sari was plundered later, at
various times, by Turcomans from the adjacent
steppes. The town has not only been tortured by
the cruelty of man but has suffered from the convul-
sions of nature, for it has frequently been rocked and
shocked by earthquakes; the last in 1935 wrought
havoc shortly before my visit.

The villagers we passed as they walked along the

SHARISTAN BRIDGE

Courtesy of the American Institute of Iranian Art

PICTURESQUE WINDING ROADS TIE THE VAST STERILE
UPLANDS WITH THE PRODUCTIVE LOWLANDS

1'JPf il *

* ,' ' ' * ift | ^i* v5f * i "*^

?IMif -* : *'

ALONG THE ROADS 145

road were of infinite variety. Some were shy, others
haughty, or perhaps their expression was due to sul-
len resentment at strange eyes looking at their bare
poverty. Their skin was of fine texture; it had a
sunburned, metallic luster. We noted a lack of sani-
tation due chiefly to Ignorance, but knew that the
polluted soil was made clean by the hot sun. All
around were crickets chirping, lizards darting here
and there, field mice nibbling the leaves. For the
moment, at least, it Is a road of peace.

XI
ART IN DAILY LIVING

IN Shiraz no one is willing to buy a garden unless
the nightingales are guaranteed to sing in it. In
a land, so great a proportion of which is dry, desert
waste, a garden is more than a thing of beauty. It
is a refuge, an oasis. It is significant that guests in
Iran are invited not to one's house, but to one's gar-
den. Four things are considered essential: the shade
of decorative trees, running water, many colorful
flowers, and the song of birds. "The perfume of
roses/' they say, "turns any house into a palace."
The pink rose petals have such a lasting, delightful
fragrance that they are used to make the Oriental
attar of roses, and are treasured when dried. The
petals of fragrant white jasmine are sometimes
heaped in a lovely green or silver bowl and sent to
friends.

To the Iranians beautiful gardens are not orna-
ments, as with us, but are an actual necessity. "They
not only satisfy an innate love of beauty/* said a
traveler, "but also provide a perfect atmosphere of
peace and serenity for the philosophic discussions
which are so much enjoyed." During my stay in
Isfahan, after passing through dull streets, between
high, drab mud walls, it was like a breath of paradise,

146

ART IN DAILY LIVING 147

a moment after I lifted and let fall the fine old
knocker on a great gate, to have It swung open by a
waiting servant, and be greeted by radiant colors,
exquisite flowers and tree forms, which gave, in
place of the dry, hot air I had been breathing, min-
gled perfumes.

When I entered, the song of the orioles and the
musical, lazy drone of the well wheel obliterated all
sense of fatigue. It Is the seclusion of the garden,
no doubt, which has provided for the Oriental an
environment which has helped him to develop
meditative thinking. For three thousand years in
Iran men have habitually, as they do today, carried
with them a book of poems. These have enabled
them, when seated on a mat or rug in a garden, to
forget the outer world in their enjoyment of essen-
tial beauty. Their pleasures had, and still have, a
touch of elegance; their old kings never hunted
without a band of musicians to accompany them.

Shiraz is a city of roses, but the most magnificent
display 1 found not in a garden but in a mosque, all
the walls of which were ablaze with bloom. The
tiled interior was completely covered with a design
of rose trees. There they swayed and bloomed eter-
nally in every shade of perfect pink, the buds and
blossoms supported on strong, graceful steins bear-
ing leaves in many shades of malachite and emerald.
The prayer-niche was outlined by a climbing rose.
So like a garden did this make the house of God, that
I lingered long in the cool and quiet sanctuary. At
twilight the nightingales took up my vigil and
flooded the fragrant stillness with a song.

148 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Iran has influenced the civilizations of the world.
We can trace many of the links In the long chain of
evidence some clearly In India and China, Russia,
Greece, and Italy; others, by Inference, in Bali and
Japan. The arts are not static; the Inspiration takes
on modifications from the people who adopt It, but,
even in the fluid art of design, the composition in
positions of heads, hands, and legs, the arrangement
of drapery and the type of backgrounds, are all Indic-
ative of the origin,

Iran's arts developed before written languages.
Examples as far back as the Stone Age, down through
the bronze and copper eras, have been excavated.
Large yellowish jars painted in black designs, which
were applied before firing, are among the earliest,
and transmit to us their joy In their work. In those
days grain and flax were raised to weave Into cloth.
From these and many other finds, the life of that day
Is reconstructed. On the cylinder seals, of which
large numbers have been found, as well as those
which are conical, hemispherical, or dome-shaped,
made of hard baked clay or of semi-precious stones,
there is fine sculptural art in miniature. The de-
signs vary in order to make each individual; hunt-
ing scenes, a portrait of the owner of the seal, figures
of warriors, of men exchanging a ceremonial ring be-
side a fire altar, and many other subjects are exe-
cuted with dignity of conception and delicacy of
treatment.

The art of Iran Is more widely known and appre-
ciated than that of any other Eastern country, with
the exception of China. Esthetic sensibility and cul-

ART IN DAILY LIVING 149

ture are an integral part of Iran's social life, a neces-
sary part of its people's happiness. The inhabitants
of the East have always given more time and thought
to the expression of man's individual nature than
have the Anglo-Saxon races. Art is not an ephemeral
fancy; it is essentially a part of life. The average
person there loves beautiful things, whether 'made
by nature or man; this is evident in every home,
street, building, and bazaar. It has taken form in
the rugs made by different tribes, each with its own
traditional designs and symbols; in the delicate
miniatures painted by artists of the towns; in the
embroidery of the well-to-do women. Each worker,
no matter how trivial his part in contributing to the
finished product, approaches his task with the deli-
cate pride characteristic of the true artist.

Tamara Talbot Rice says: "No other country can
boast of three hundred years of such artistry as Iran
knew in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth cen-
turies; truly a golden age, for in it lived some of
her greatest poets, and profound calligraphers and
painters. Not even the supreme creative periods of
Greece, nor the Renaissance in Italy, produced work
of such unity and consummate finish in detail/'

Too little is known of the origin of Iranian paint-
ing and its history prior to the third century A.D.
Then a painter named Mani founded the Manichsean
religious sect, that strange eclectic religion which was
a rival to Christianity at first, and a threat not only
to the Persian state religion but to the crown itself.
It is said that, when Mani's books were judged
heretical and cast into the flames, rivulets of gold

150 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

streamed from the fire, the residue of the gorgeous
bindings. Hani's pictures were so arresting that his
name led to the formation of the Manichaean school
of painting, which continued until the ninth cen-
tury, in spite of the fact that much of its work was
destroyed by the Moslems when they conquered Iran
in the seventh century. Works of this school, mas-
terly both in drawing and in the power of conveying
emotion, were preserved in the frescoes discovered
far off in Chinese Turkestan by A. von Le Coq.

The Iranian painter was tireless in his love of
detail. His favorite theme was the glorification of
princely occupations rather than of the lives of the
saints and martyrs, or of the lower class. Princes
were idealized and represented in their moments of
philosophizing, or when engaged in hunting or play-
ing polo. The paintings were not ordinarily in-
tended to arouse any strong emotion but to illus-
trate decoratively a story in such a way as to satisfy
the severest esthetic canons. The harsh realities
of plague, drought, famine, and the like were left
out. The pictures were designed to impress upon
the mind romantic events, legends, and such pastimes
as only the wealthy could indulge in. They were
probably painted under the patronage of wealthy
men who could secure for the artists relief from
worry regarding necessities, and assure their secur-
ity. It was a "courtly art" which had neither a
popular nor a religious impulse.

Landscapes have stylized mountains in the back-
ground, between the elevations of which are finely
drawn leopards, lions, or other wild animals, and

ART IX DAILY LIVING 151

occasionally grandees on horseback. There is no
perspective; this emphasizes the lat mural effect and
gives equal importance to all people. The same ten-
dency appears, to a lesser extent, in Chinese draw-
Ing, which may have been Influenced by Iran, in
whose clear air objects are as distinct at a distance as
close by. Her artists of today, however, are more
realistic and are developing perspective.

Artistic creativeness reached its highest achieve-
ment centuries ago In miniature painting, and added
to it decorative illumination to illustrate the work of
poets. These miniatures, subtle and sumptuous,
are unrivaled in the history of art. It is unfortunate
that they cannot be more widely known, owing to
the fact that most of them are bound in with delicate
manuscripts, notably with the poems of Nizami and
Jami. This art has been carried on, almost unin-
terruptedly, since the time of the Sassanian kings,
when the first miniatures were painted; later it was
softened and broadened by Chinese and Samarkand
influences under the Mongol and Timurid conquests.

The subjects are vibrant persons the ordinary is
made extraordinary flying birds, tall, graceful trees,
minute flowers and palace buildings which the artist
saw In his daily life; but, they are all removed into
a strange and radiant world, because there Is no at-
tempt to render the light and shade of nature. It
Is an art jewel-like, romantic, and fastidious. In
glorifying the ancient heroes and heroines of old
Iran, the artists exerted an influence which spread
into India, Turkey, and even Italy in the fifteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Modern French artists,

i5 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

especially Matisse, have been very appreciative of
Iranian painting, and the fact that it does not re-
produce nature but rather, in equivalent, realizes
the constant elements in the unusual experiences it
depicts it is both provocative and ultimate.

Hadji Mirza Hussein Mussafar is unquestionably
the ablest miniature painter of the present day.
There is no sign over the door of his small, bare
studio in Isfahan. None is needed, for everyone
in Isfahan can tell you where to find the master.
One climbs up a rough steep ladder, passes through
a dark narrow hall, and across a roof to a low-ceil-
inged room with wide windows. There on a bench
sits the great painter, his legs folded under him. In
front of him is a large wooden table on which stands
a box containing many little cups of different paints.
As there is rarely any ivory available, camel bone is
used instead to paint on. The long shafts of the
bones are cut into various sizes, oblong or^ square,
averaging three quarters of an inch in diameter.
They are smoothed on one side to make a surface for
miniature painting. They are then pierced with
holes through which eventually silver wires will be
passed to make the links which will hold the bone
squares together in order to make clasps or other
ornaments. This type of painting is also used on
pendants, sleeve links, book covers, rings, jewel
boxes and other handsome articles.

Temporarily the bits of camel bone are fastened
in sequence. In order not to have the eye disturbed
by their immediate contiguity, they are spaced far-

ART IN DAILY LIVING 153

ttier apart than they will be when they are combined
In the jewelry being fashioned.

In Mussafar's studio eight assistants sat on the
loot, with their backs to the wall. Low work tables
were before them; each was executing the portion
he could do best in relation to the ability of the
others. The youngest sat nearest the door and the
most skilled next to the master.

Mussafar had outlined the designs for all the
pieces of work, which passed from hand to hand as
the assistants executed them in rotation. The de-
sign of a bracelet had a series of single figures; women
in graceful positions, exquisite robes and head-
dresses, each In a different pose with different sur-
roundings, playing on quaint musical instruments,
reading, holding a bowl of flowers or fruit, or medi-
tatively relaxed. These squares on which the figures
were outlined were alternated with exactly the same
size squares, each decorated with a tile design. This
gave the effect of preventing the different figure per-
sonalities from impinging on each other. Mussa-
far's designs possess imaginative delicacy and cover
a wide range; their rhythm and dignity increase their
poetic feeling. The backgrounds are as remarkable
as the figures. The compositions are complex yet
simple and convincing.

For Mussafar's work camel's-hair brushes are too
coarse; he uses cat's hair. A tomcat, a tabby, and a
kitten are available; when he requires a new brush
he selects a cat of the right age to have just the size
and texture of hair he needs, and extracts two or

i 5 4 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

three hairs from Its tail. For a palette he uses his
thumbnail.

To make his masterpieces with their delicate
lines, brilliant colors, and infinitesimal detail, Mus-
safar, like all Iranian artists, needs plenty of time.
To give the proper finish to a minute square requires
several weeks. When asked why he was twice as
good a painter as any other in Iran, he replied,
"Because I spend twice as much time on each centi-
meter as does the next-best miniature painter in
Isfahan."

Mussafar is decended from a family of artists who
have been painting miniatures in Isfahan for three
centuries. Like other sons of artists, he learned the
technique and subject matter of painting from his
father, whom he aided at an early age. When he
saw his father painting a fairy tale on a three-
quarters-of-an-inch square, and on the next square a
peacock with every feather in iridescent exactness,
he was seized with a single ambition to be an artist.
In the workshop studio he learned through paint-
ing rather than from scholastic education natural
history, the history of his people, their social cus-
toms, the architecture of mosques, the traditions of
sports and leisure, and the symbolism of the
arabesques.

In order to do such delicate miniatures, artists
have developed a super-keenness of eyesight; they
see the nuances about the minutest objects of nature,
and can depict them clearly in a tiny space. This
implies not only amazing perceptive powers but a
determination to attain perfection in the smallest

ART IN DAILY LIVING 155

details. It also demonstrates remarkably fine mus-
cular adjustment. We are used to art which, is
broad-lined, expansivecharacteristic of American
idealism, adventure, and achievement. Iranian art
in its refinement and subtlety is characteristic of
the life of its people.

In Iran art enters home life more intimately than
in any other country except Italy. As in painting
so in metals, an entire family work on an artistic
venture. The father supervises and passes on his
tastes and tasks to the children, who continue the
work and the tradition after his death. Fine ad-
justment of muscles and accuracy of eye are assets
in the brass bazaar. Work is so graduated that It
increases muscular development and control in the
swift, accurate pounding of a sheet of brass into a
tray, and the cutting of the perforated edge never
deviates from its proper spacing and size. With
ease the average artisan in silver and brass work
will chisel the metal delicately, free-hand, in a pat-
tern of lifelike little animals and human figures.
According to Arthur Upham Pope, the greatest
achievement of these artists in metal was the Sassa-
nian silver plates, with their gold-relief decorations.
He says: "These platters, ewers, vessels are monu-
mental in outline, vital and robust in pattern; they
seem accouterments for more than mortals."

Ceramics hold a high place. Someone has said of
the pottery: "Nowhere else are the intentions that
lie within a material so perfectly set forth. The
nature of clay is fully realized but never violated/'
Poems have been written to their lovely bowls, which

156 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

are generous in proportion, gracious in outline^
Many have been designed from nature. Leaf, fish,
and bird forms are not uncommon and are exqui-
sitely worked out. The potter was and is by way of
being a sculptor, for natural forms are rendered in
the round human figures, seated or standing, lions
and other lithe animals, horses, and elephants. Re-
cently a group found near Ray was covered with* a
clear turquoise glaze. In a collection at Teheran
there is a magnificent pair of eagles.

When the elaborate, interwoven curves of the
exquisite Arabic writing came into vogue in designs
for friezes, this and the decorative, long-lined letter-
ing held sway, but the independence of Iranian char-
acter made it impossible for all artists to give up
individual expression. The metal workers were
heirs to a noble tradition the motif of the bull's
head, a symbol of friendly power, was not eliminated.
It was used as the top and spout of bronze ewers.
A number of other animals were also used: ibex,
pegasus, and a winged goat, lions as well as cranes,
peacocks, birds, and some human figures. Every
style of vessel or implement that could be -wrought
continued to be produced at this period; rose-water
sprinklers, braziers, trays, incense burners, lamps,
scissors, pincers and strainers all were perfectly
made in ancient bazaars.

Today the descendants of artists do whatever they
do well; silver is deeply engraved; they develop
artistry without set patterns; there is no cheap jew-
elry made for mere costume effect. It seems as if a
spiritual perception has preserved the expression of

Courtesy of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions

MEN'S BUILDING, AMERICAN HOSPITAL IN HAMADAN,
FOUNDED BY DR. FUNK.

BOY BRINGING BLIND FATHER TO DISPENSARY AT TURSKIZ

ART IN DAILY LIVING 157

this phase of civilization through generation after
generation, because the artisans have dedicated them-
selves to high ideals.

For ritualistic use during the processions of Mu-
harram religious symbols were and still are made;
the commonest of these are the flat, metal hands of
Husein, the famous martyr who fought on at
the battle of Kerbela after his hands were cut off.
These, In silver and other metals, are for sale in all
bazaars.

One of the best-known expressions of artistic orig-
inality Is the rugs and carpets, which they use In all
sorts of ways, as carpets and door curtains, to sleep
on and under, for table covers, for wall hangings,
and in place of suitcases to protect bundles when
traveling. Admirably designed and woven rugs are
for sale everywhere.

Although carpets have apparently been made for
over four thousand years, the typical or knotted-pile
carpet is a product of the last two thousand. Its pat-
tern is usually historic or symbolic, its borders geo-
metric, although many are abstract, conventionalized
flower and tile designs. Each knot is tied separately,
and a good carpet has 10,000 knots to the square
foot, the finest, 40,000. Among the tribal people
and the villagers a whole family often work at one
carpet for years. The irregularities which result
are intentional, to avert the Evil Eye, which it might
attract If It were perfect.

The old palace carpets with their central medal-
lions are less in demand today. The modern rugs

158 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

show more independence and imagination. Carpets
in Irregular and expansive patterns are being de-
signed; many of them are even more beautiful than
the older type. The Shah has recently established
schools for continuing the famous rug industry
under expert supervision.

The Kerman, Tabriz, Sultanabad and Hamadan
districts are among the Important centers of rug
manufacture, Iran's most widely known and gener-
ally appreciated art; the word factory suggests ma-
chinery, but the rugs are still made by hand. The
buildings now are large, well lighted, and ventilated,
and have proper foot rests for the weavers. The
industry since 1937 has been under government
supervision. The Shah expects it to be solely in the
hands of Iranian manufacturers, dealers, and ship-
pers. America is the chief market.

Mistakes are few and these are not corrected until
the rug is completed; among the many home-made
dyesand on pain of a large fine no others may be
used are the deep red and rich rose shades made
from the root of the madder plant which are typical
of Iranian rugs. The most tedious and exacting part
of the work is done by the men, who sit on the ground
shearing the carpets with enormous, specially shaped
scissors, to make them perfectly smooth. They nec-
essarily bend close to the rug. The life of a rug ex-
tends over many generations. It is the custom of
every Iranian to have one or more carpets.

Among the Iranians there is a lively interest in
literature, and even though a large number of the
people may still be illiterate, they are not lacking in

ART IX DAILY LIVING 159

learning. Indeed, they have a more Intimate knowl-
edge of their classics than the average European has
o the masterpieces of his own race. Everyone ap-
preciates both poetry and musk, and for generations
these arts have been part of the education of all
classes. Blind men recite poetry and sing for a liv-
ing tales which blend history and legend. I heard
these often at caravan stops, at town gathering places
in the late afternoon, and under starry skies; they,
like the bards of old, held their audiences spell-
bound. It has been said that their national poetry
is to them what the Psalms were to our ances-
tors, an Incentive to action and a consolation In
trouble.

No Western and no Eastern race, except, perhaps,
the Chinese and Hindu, have a longer or more cre-
ative literary heritage. Indisputably the most in-
fluential and inspiring of their poets Is the great
Firdausi. Like Homer, he sang the history of his
people, and his epic poem of old Iran, the Shah-
namah (Book of Kings), Is an integral part of the
national life today.

Of this epic Arthur Upham Pope has written:
"No man has ever dominated the consciousness of a
whole race more thoroughly and none for so long a
period. He has rendered to Iran all the precious
gifts that the poet can confer, and has influenced the
character of later generations by giving great signifi-
cance to tradition. He embodied and made avail-
able the spirit of ancient Iran when, otherwise, it
might have been completely annihilated by the vicis-
situdes of conquest. To him the whole nation has

160 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

gone to school to learn about Its great kings and
empires, and through his genius the racial experi-
ence is concentrated into one thrilling book, the
Shah-namah (which, by the way, has been ably trans-
lated). It collected and distributed for all times
the essential elements of greatness. This epic bound
the scattered ages with a song, and, like the Divine
Comedy of Dante, was a noble evaluation of life,
giving momentum to succeeding generations."

It even plays a part in humbler, everyday activi-
ties. For example, the athletes and wrestlers still
perform their exercises in the Zurkhana, popu-
lar gymnasia, to the rhythm* of the dombak, a kind
of drum, accompanied by the chanting of couplets
from the Shah-namah, descriptive of ancient battle

scenes.

It is an interesting fact that Omar has never in
his own country been classed among poets of first
rank, along with Firdausi, Jalal-ad-din, Hafiz, Saadi,
Jami and others. He is regarded primarily as a
mathematician and an astronomer who did valuable
work in reforming the calendar. Perhaps his poems
told of things so commonplace to his own people as
to have no particular significance to them the cara-
van, the potter's wheel were in their everyday experi-
ence. Nor did they, though not all abstainers, ap-
preciate his frequent references to wine.

One man told me bitterly: "I married a senti-
mental girl who was as impractical as a quatrain.
She is still all moonlight and roses. If I had not
been temporarily hypnotized by the sentimental

S 3

o

I

ART IN DAILY LIVING 161

strains o Omar I would never have proposed to her.
I consider him a definite danger for young men who
want to make a success of life."

In Shiraz I made a pilgrimage to the tombs of
Saadi and of Hafiz, poets who have influenced
thought and life for seven hundred years. Saadi
was born in Shiraz about A.D. 1193 and educated in
Baghdad. He became one of the great travelers of
his time, visiting India, Chinese Turkestan, Asia
Minor, Abyssinia, and Palestine, made a pilgrimage
to Mecca no less than thirteen times and once was a
prisoner of the Crusaders at Tripoli in Syria. While
he had unfailing skill in laying his finger upon out-
standing features of the Iranian scene, his travels
gave to him, a critic claims, * 'something of the philo-
sophic spirit of a Montaigne and the quizzical bit-
ing humor of a Voltaire."

Now that the psychology of Iran puts an accent
on energy, there are leaders who think that Saadi's
poetry Is dangerously contemplative and teaches a
too ready acceptance of Fate, too ready submission
to events; for It is a custom to open a volume of
verses and trust to a stray line as a guide in conduct
and deeds.

Hafiz was born only a few years after the death of
Saadi, whose mantle seems to have fallen on him.
Shiraz gave the poets those things of which, and for
which, he made his songs. Gertrude Bell said that
the love of Hafiz for Shiraz was like the love of
Dante for Florence. During his lifetime it was five
times beseiged and taken; this no doubt increased

162 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

his devotion to his native city, which has the reputa-
tion of "turning aside the heart of the wanderer from
his own land/'

Hafiz' lyrics have been compared with those of
Horace. The tombs of both Hafiz and Saadi are
surrounded by gardens with cypress trees growing
in them. These graves have no sadness. When I
visited Saadi's tomb the desolate splendor of the
high, brown, bare mountains back of It was enam-
eled by the sun, the beauty of which, in ever-changing
colors, suffused over Shiraz an indescribable radi-
ance; the tiles on the domes of the tombs sparkled
yellow, blue, green, and pink. Small uniform,
oblong, inscribed tablets to Saadi, placed there as
tributes to him, make a frieze around the room in
which his body lies. Around his tomb are the graves
of those who wished the blessing of being buried
near him. Nearby is a large well, where a river
comes to the surface. Up and down the steep and
slippery steps leading to this, women pass all day;
here they wash themselves and their clothes. Their
voices resound in the vaulted cistern roof. When
their washing is finished, they make tea on their
little charcoal mangals, and have a bit of food. It
it all very human and simple. He is so much a part
of their lives that they feel at home by his tomb.

Leaving the garden in which his body rests, one
recalls the lines which place him foremost among the
Sufi poets:

Love is where the glory falls
Of Thy face, on convent walk

ART IN DAILY LIVING 163

Or on tavern floors, the same
Inextinguishable flame
When the turbaned anchorite
Chanteth Allah day and night
Church bells ring the call to prayer
And the cross of Christ is there.*

In her classic poets, Iran has not only Inspiration
but a bond of national unity, the influence of which
the rising generation will not ignore, for when the
classic poets are rightly interpreted, they do more
than anything else to maintain and enhance the dis-
tinctive qualities of the race. Their poets, by their
teaching, their warning, their encouragement, and
their consolation have affected the lives of countless
men and women the world around. In America we
have learned that nervous and muscular energy are
allied, movement is quickened and fatigue lessened
by brisk music. In Iran every industry has its own
song which softens labor by making work socially
pleasant instead of an arduous task. Threshing,
grinding grain, harvesting, drawing water, making
wine, dyeing, weaving, pounding or grinding wheat
and rice all have their rhythms. Classical odes as
well as popular ballads are sung by laborers at their
work. The merchant as he makes a sale quotes
poetry, lawyers compose lyrics over refreshments
when a case has been decided. The pithy sayings of
Saadi are on the lips of everyone.

A Teheran newspaper in 1936 stated: "For some
time the Ministry of Education has been taking
steps toward making a collection of ancient songs and

* Translation by R. A. Nicholson.

164 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

legends traditionally current among the residents o
various parts of the country but never written down,
with the intention o gathering them Into special
books and pamphlets/'

Music plays an important part In the lives of the
Iranians, though their peculiar Instruments, so lim-
ited In scale, and their singing notes which sound
monotonous to us, are alien to our ears. An Iranian
told me:

"It sounds monotonous and Inadequate to you
because it lacks the vigor, lightness, depth, and
gaiety of western music, but the many repetitions of
our low-toned melodies stir us profoundly. If you
remain long in Iran, you will hear music on the soft
night air and sense that it has no racial boundaries.
Our music is quiet and has the tones of nature.
Like water flowing over boulders and stones, like
wind in the trees, it has universal rhythms. Yours
forgive me seems to us to sound 'screechy.' A
fellow Iranian, who was with me in America, de-
scribed your operatic music as laryngeal gymnastics;
he added that Wagner was to him a musical show-
man, who loved blaring beauty.

"The high notes destroy our feeling of deep,
strong, tense emotion. Restraint to us means more
than extravagant expression. As a matter of fact,
we have steps a quarter apart, while you have only
half steps. We have really as great a variety of tones,
but they are flat to your ears because your sense of
sound is not sufficiently developed to enable you to
hear them. The range is telescoped to a smaller scale
than the range of western music."

ART IN DAILY LIVING 165

There Is, I concluded, a difference then in the
"threshold of hearing/* due perhaps to psychologi-
cal rather than physical causes.

Another critic has summed up their music: "It
has the tones of a Gregorian chant, but its gutturals
are raucous to western ears. It has, however, primi-
tive intensity and insistence which makes it very
moving, like the inevitability of a storm, a sunrise,
or a constellation making its way across the sky."

Music of some sort is part of religions, but it was
prohibited by Islamic convention for a long time.
Recently one of the followers of Zoroaster gave a
quaint gift to Teherana subsidy which provides
that each day, at sunset, musicians sit in a gallery
above the great gate leading into the domain of the
Minister of War and play on ancient instruments the
high-pitched Zoroastrian music. At twilight crowds
gather, people of all ages and classes. They stand
quietly and listen to the old refrains with deep ap-
preciation. This odd, subtle music of drums and
reeds means much to them, and I, too, found it im-
pressive, resurrecting the ideals of Zoroaster so long
submerged by Mohammedan ecclesiasticism to sat-
isfy an ancient longing imbedded deep in the Iran-
ian character.

The world has learned much of Iranian art
through the great exhibitions held in recent years
in England, in Belgium, in America, and in Russia,
for in these expositions magnificent collections of
ancient and modern pieces were brought together,
including sculpture, much of which had only re-
cently been excavated. Iran Is unquestionably tak~

i66 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

ing her rightful place internationally, and is a source
of pride to the entire East. The arts of Iran have
been so completely isolated that when in 1910
the Islamic art of Iran was featured in the Munich
Exhibition, it came as a revelation to modern Eu-
rope. Strange to say, the invading conquerors of
Iran, in spite of destroying much, enriched her art
both by bringing to it fresh blood and vigor and by
encouraging an exchange of ideas and technique
which also added much to the art not only of China
and India, but through them influenced the art of
all Asia.

XII

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY THROUGH
THE AGES

ARCHITECTURE records every phase of the
2~\hhtOTj of Iran. Surviving records bridge the
iconoclastic years when the Mongols, in A.D. 1221,
under Genghis Khan, rode victoriously and devas-
tatingly through the country. Luckily much was
then in the kindly keeping of the earth, or deep in
sheltering forests, and therefore escaped oblitera-
tion at the hands of the marauders.

Journeying through Iran, at every turn of the
road one comes upon the remains of buildings and
monuments of great antiquity and beauty, for the
tumultuous history of the empire has made of the
whole country an archeological treasure trove. Each
founder of a new dynasty built his capital four hun-
dred miles or more away from the last. It was a
measure for safety, as it was desirable to avoid the
relatives of those he had conquered, especially the
devoted followers of the last king, who in revenge
would not only alienate the latter's followers, but
more likely than not would attempt to take the new-
comer's life. To build up his decimated ranks of sol-
diers, the new ruler wished to press into his service a
large number of individuals who, having up to this

167

168 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

time led a quiet, normal life, were of healthy stock.
These would know nothing of an earlier magnifi-
cence to compare with his newly acquired regal
splendor, and would therefore be overwhelmingly
impressed by his importance. All of which proves,
in a measure, that beauty is deathless, and that even
barbaric conquerors could not prevent a survival of
art; so the golden thread of culture wove through
the tragedies of downfall and rebuilding.

Near Kazarun is the province of Fars. In 1924
local peasant shepherds led astonished archeologists
to a "find" which is on a hill above a precipice. It
can be reached only by a small rock staircase lead-
ing up from a river far below the bas-relief. A god
sits on a snake throne; horns issue from his crown.
In his hand he holds a vase containing the "water of
life." This flows out to the worshipers, who wear
long robes. A goddess sits behind him. She has the
dignity of wearing a headdress similar to his. Forty
attendants approach, in skirts to their knees. Their
hair is in pigtails similar to those in the Hittite stone
carvings of Asia Minor.

This and other carvings show that artistic inde-
pendence had developed by the eighth century B.C.
Some of these show not only strong walls, towers,
and battlements, but domestic houses of several
stories with arched doors. The inscriptions tell of
columns and roofs of wood. These were easily
destroyed, but the metal tiles that covered the roofs
survive. Archeologists maintain that these were un-
known in Assyria and Babylonia at the time, indicat-
ing that Iran was preeminent at this early date. This

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 169

Is further Indicated by carvings which show a temple
with six columns across the front and a gabled roof,
antedating the Greek form of temple construction.
The vistas of Iran's history stretch far along avenues
of endless interest.

Darius and his successors had the wisdom to know
that ostentation Invites destruction, so they had
records made which would endure for all time.
Their palaces might go, but the mountains would
stand. High on Inaccessible cliffs, on precipices and
In caves, they left their imperishable records. North
of Kermanshah, in the caves of Tak-I-Bustan, are
the sculptured records of the Sassanian dynasty
which were made more than seventeen centuries ago.
Deep in the heart of the cliff are two vaulted caves
richly carved with scenes from the life of the ro-
mantic king Khosru II and his beautiful wife Shirin.

The entrance to the naturally symmetrical great
rock caves, fourteen feet high and twenty feet deep,
was cut by stone masons into double arches, on
which the sculptor lavished decorative art. On the
walls to the right and left, as well as those facing
the entrances, are bold historical and mythological
figures cut in high relief from the living rock. These,
together with all the other cliff and cave carvings,
unite in a stirring record the excitement, effort, faith,
and failure which make up the Imperishable stories
of conquest and triumph on one side, disaster and
death on the other.

From here, north, south, east, and west, are scat-
tered the ruins of cities, fortresses, tombs and
temples. There are more and more sites being dis-

170 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

covered where rare sculpture and objects of art are
found from Tabriz in northwest Iran, beyond
Meshed toward the border of Afghanistan. At
Murghab are the ruins of the palaces and temples
which, in 550 B.C., belonged to Cyrus the Great. In
excavating the earliest levels of mounds in Susa and
Persepolis, Oengham and ancient Ray, tiles and pot-
tery have been found which may go back over 6000
years, for they show a long line of development that
required centuries to achieve, and indicate that Iran
was the center from which the earliest known civili-
zation spread. According to Dr. Olmstead, Professor
of Oriental History in the University of Chicago,
"there are a thousand other mounds in Iran crying
out to be excavated."

Twenty miles from Kermanshah is the far-famed
rock of Behistun upon which Darius, King of Kings,
caused to be inscribed a list of his conquests, pro-
claiming for all time the might of his empire. The
bas-relief, which has defied winds and rains for over
2400 years, depicts his triumph over ten pretenders
to the throne. Beneath the feet of the Emperor lies
a prostrate enemy, imploring with outstretched arms
the mercy of the monarch, who implacably raises his
hand to pronounce the doom of his captives. Over
Darius* head is the winged figure of the Zoroastrian
god, Ahura-Mazda, who is presenting to him a ring
as the emblem of sovereignty. The inscriptions
which surround the figures are on large tablets in
three languages: Elamite, Babylonian, and old
Persian. All were in cuneiform character by sym-
bols, for each language differed, but all were made

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 171

up o simple wedge-form, cut deeper at the broad
end.

While savants from Germany, France, Denmark,
and Italy had successfully deciphered cuneiform writ-
Ing, our debt of gratitude for translating the Behis-
tun record Is mainly due to a young British officer,
Major Henry C. Rawlinson, who was employed In
Hamadan by the Shah to train native recruits and
while there became interested In, the Behistun In-
scriptions. With the aid of a Kurdish shepherd lad,
he made the perilous climb up the inaccessible cliff
in 1835, and secured a "paper squeeze" of the eleven
stone records which surround the great bas-relief.
It took many years to complete the translations, but
this work became the key which unlocked many
records of antiquity. The triple inscription was the
custom of those days and a courtesy to the different
peoples who together composed the empire.

The ancient city of Ray was, in 1037, the proud
capital of the Seljuk dynasty, until the Mongols
swept over it. When Marco Polo traversed Iran on
his journey from Venice to China, he spoke of it as
a barren wilderness. It was excavated jointly by
the University of Pennsylvania and the Boston Mu-
seum of Fine Arts, under the direction of Dr. Erich
Schmidt, and through their work we have an op-
portunity to gain first-hand knowledge of the
shadowy years of the far past, catching glimpses here
and there through rifts In the walls of time.

Persepolis is a bit of the eternal, and the histori-
cal apex of a journey to Iran. Suddenly, out of the
desert, one comes to Persepolis. As far off as they

172 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

can be seen, its many remaining columns form the
most amazing ruin in the entire Orient. A few
tottering pillars which men still sadly call Persepolis
seem to the traveler today like a leafless and
lightning-stricken grove on a deserted plateau.
Scarcely a vestige remains of the glowing fagades of
the Hall of a Hundred Columns or the Hypostyle
Hall of Xerxes, the restored plans of which show
with startling clearness whence the Moorish archi-
tects of the Alhambra drew their esthetic lineage.
But if these lofty palaces of the Achaemenid mon-
archs are now wrecks on the shoal and bank of time,
they survive in human imagination as an assembled
and dazzling picture, eternal and indestructible. Its
prestige was so great, even in the sixteenth century,
that Christopher Marlow's Tamerlane exclaims:

Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis!

It is a dramatic moment in any life to walk up
the gradual slope of the majestic staircase to the
palace of Xerxes and stand at its mighty stone gates.
The remains of two palaces, that of Darius the
Great and that of his son Xerxes, stand on a plat-
form which is lifted 25 feet in the air and is 1500
feet long. It was built with infinite labor, of rocks
hewn out of the side of the nearby Zagros Moun-
tains. They face the plain of Marvdasht, a flat,
fertile land, ten miles across and connecting with
other valleys extending for six hundred miles. In
the old days this was all under cultivation. The

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 173

kings in Persepolls felt themselves secure, for their
palaces were protected from their enemies on the
east by the high, bare, and unproductive moun-
tains; on the west the city and the palaces overlooked
a fully populated garden valley, well cultivated and
capable of feeding many thousands of people. They
dreamed dreams of peace, as had the mighty Cyrus,
who, after uniting the Medes and Persians, cap-
tured King Croesus and absorbed the Babylonian
Empire.

Even in ruins, Persepolis is today one of the most
impressive spectacles in the world. The stones are
especially vital in the afternoon and morning light.
Then the palaces seem again to be filled with life.
Pageantry, entertainments, and wars survive in the
towering walls, and the great bas-reliefs, which seem
actually to breathe in the vibrating light.

Architecture is an index of the culture of a peo-
ple. Many who have made pilgrimages to these
ruins have felt a quickened sense of living. Life
seems to go back as actively as it goes forward. Asia
is not dying she is awakening. She recollects, rec-
ognizes, breathes with new life. In the little mud
villages, so still, so lonely and secluded, there is talk
of the rebuilding of the "Throne of Jamshid," as
they call Persepolis. Even the peasants are bound
by reverence for mighty association. This is a close,
deep feeling, due to their racial identification with
all that Persepolis signifies, and their belief that in
their time, or in that of their children, Iran will
again be great.

There are about 1200 bas-relief figures in many

174 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

shapes and designs. Oft repeated and In elaborate
detail is the allegory of the King killing the demon
griffin, symbolic of the conquering might of the
Emperors. The formality of the struggle is delight-
ful. The contestants are well groomed; the King
erect, his headdress, hair, and beard faultless. Not
a single fold of his costume is disturbed by the con-
flict. The robe over his shoulders, the double plaited
skirt, are more suggestive of what the well-dressed
Achaemenian should wear than they are of a death
struggle! The griffin holds his many-feathered
wings close to his body; his scaly neck is handsomely
arched; his crest as neat as if it had been fluted for
the occasion. The muscle modeling of the animal
is accentuated, but there is no strain, no tension any-
where; these the sculptors probably thought would
lessen the dignity of the whole. The demon stands
firmly on one clawed foot and presses the other
against the left leg of his adversary, while his left
claw pushes against the royal breast. He immo-
bilizes the King's upraised arm by grasping it at the
elbow. Weight, strength, and position are with
him, but the King easily conquers by looking his
opponent unwaveringly in the eye, while stabbing
him in the abdomen, to signify, perhaps, the con-
centration of his armies.

Another oft-repeated group is of a lion, relentlessly
attacking a gentle, gazelle-like animal, which wears
a necklace and makes no resistance* While his flanks
are being firmly held in the lion's claws and a large
bite is being taken out of his back, he looks reproach-
fully at his overpowering enemy as if to say, "How

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 175

can you do this to me?" This, I was told, typifies
the desert overcoming civilization.

The grand ceremonial staircase has two wide
flights which, after a broad landing, converge and
lead to the audience chamber where sat the mighty
Emperor, Darius. The slabs which formed the up-
right sides of the stairs have been rescued from the
earth and restored to their original position. The
bas-reliefs on these are as clear-cut as if hewn yester-
day, and cleverly represent, as if they were mounting
the stairs, a long series of men in the costumes of
many different countries. They are emissaries from
the kings of all the conquered countries, bringing
tribute to their overlord, and gifts which represent
the finest art of the lands from which they have come
Egypt, Ethiopia, Chaldea, Babylon; in fact, all ter-
ritory from the Indus River to the Nile had been
conquered by Iran.

Of the millions of travelers from all over the earth,
none have been disappointed here. It is impossible
to expect too much. The carvings are full of interest,
for here one reads in stone not only the crisp details
of Greek art, but also the methods and the decorative
quality of designs from Lydia, Assyria, and other
countries. When these had been conquered, their
best artists were brought to Persepolis, where their
captivity was lightened by congenial work and by
comradeship, for here the genius of the then known
world was brought together and flowered. Persep-
olis expresses the virility and triumph of the age
which produced it.

The originality of the architecture is in the far-

176 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

famed Persepolitan column, which Is extremely
slender, and has numerous perpendicular channel-
ings and semicircular grooving. It stands upon an
elaborate bell-shaped base. Its capital is the most
complicated of all ancient types, and is among the
most beautiful. It comprises three superimposed
parts the uppermost is made of two bulls, kneeling
back to back. This unique bull design is copied in
some of the state department buildings of Teheran.

Thousands of years have passed, but still the great
Assyrian winged bulls stand at the gates of these
palaces. These bulls have the faces of men sur-
mounted by high headdresses. Odd as this combina-
tion is, there is strength and great dignity in their
stern features, and the great wings give balance to
the composition. The curled hair, beards, and long
earrings do not detract from the serene consciousness
of power.

Beaten for ages by wind and dust storms, scorched
and eroded by eons of blinding suns and drenching
rains, the spiritual and intellectual influence of Per-
sepolis still exerts itself, not only upon the souls and
minds of those who stand on its great platform, but
through the work directed by Olmstead, Breasted
and Schmidt. The spiritual power of this beauty
has inspired artists everywhere, and so has reached
around the world. The circle seems to complete
itself where this touches the great Aztec and Inca
ritual designs which independently developed about
A.D. 100 on our side of the Atlantic.

There is a tradition that Persepolis once contained
a great library in which there were, among other

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 177

Zoroastrlan books, the Avesta, written by order of
Darius in silver and gold on 12,000 ox hides. At
Persepolis, besides larger treasures, tablets, number-
less royal seals and jewels have been found, and in
the nearby city of Shushan, or Susa, where Esther
captivated Xerxes (Ahasuerus of the Bible), there
has been found, among other architectural elegan-
cies, a lion frieze in glazed tile, the ground of which
is turquoise blue, the lions in tawny yellow, and the
design below the frieze in gray and rose.

The huge palaces were adorned with metal and
with textiles of rare sorts from China and India as
well as from Iran. They were carpeted with price-
less rugs in colors which no other weavers could com-
bine. The colors of the desert must have molded
the artists' temperaments. Bare mountains, swiftly
changing, gave strength and vivacity; oasis gardens
put into their hearts a love of fine flower and animal
forms and taught them to master the use of color.

At last Persepolis fell. Macedonian, Seleucid, Par-
thian, and Sassanic swept over it in succession, not
well knowing the wealth and wonder of that which
they destroyed. The halls, burned at the whim of
Thais, the light o' love of Alexander the Great, fell
into blackened ruin. Those that she spared, shaken
and neglected, soon perished through the falling In
of the heavily timbered and overornamented roofs;
the runlets from the hills gnawed mercilessly at the
wooded architraves and slowly crumbled the clay
which covered them. In the course of half a century
or so from the period in which they had been last
inhabited, they had sunk into almost the same de-

178 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

gree of ruin in which we behold them today. Then
came the Arab, who quarried among their pillars
for the building materials out of which his farm or
homestead was to be constructed. And lastly fell
utter desolation noiseless, silent, sun-drenched ruin
where once stood on their platform the snow-white
colonnades of the throne rooms of the great kings.

Alexander, familiar with the beauty of ancient
Greece, thus became, in an hour, the king of vandals
and the arch enemy of civilization. It is said that
there were those who suggested that now was the
time for him to retaliate against the Iranians for the
successful battle of Thermopolae, and for their hav-
ing dared to send their armies and fleets against the
Greeks at Marathon and Salamis. Alexander would
conquer the world and rule Iran, but by this act he
seated himself instead on the throne of Nemesis.
Neither the name of Alexander nor of any of his
soldiers is anywhere to be found among the ruins,
but there is the name of Xerxes, inscribed In re-
sounding phrases:

I AM XERXES, THE GREAT KING, THE
KING OF COUNTRIES, OF MANY RACES,
THE KlNG OF THE GREAT UNIVERSE,
THE SON OF DARIUS, THE KING, THE

ACHAEMENIAN.

After the magnificent palaces of Darius and Xerxes
at Persepolis and that of Artaxerxes at what is now
Hamadan were destroyed by invaders, architecture
languished for centuries. Little is known about the
later palaces, except that they were relatively small,

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 179

designed nevertheless with exquisite art and the ut-
most enrichment of all kinds of decoration.

The private residences of the rich resembled the
palaces. In some degree Shah Abbas revived some
of the old architecture and developed much that was
original and strong, which has endured Intact until
today. The palaces and mosques which he built are
among the most entrancing In the entire Islamic
world. They are characterized by brick walls and
vaults, brilliant tile facings, exquisitely symmetrical
domes, huge portals, niches, and round minarets
a design which spread to India and Turkestan, and
also radiated Into Syria, Egypt, and Spain.

The center of Interest In Teheran is the ancient
and beautiful Gulistan Palace In the heart of the
city. It was used as the residence of the rulers until
the present Shah. It Is a treasure house of elegance
and dignity. Now It Is used only on state occasions,
such as the reception of foreign ambassadors and
ministers, the holding of Royal Salaams at No-Ruz
(New Year), and on the Shah's birthday. A new
palace has been constructed on Avenue Pahlavi,
where His Majesty, the Shah o Shahs, resides with
his family- It is enclosed by a great wall which in-
sures the complete privacy sought by high and low
alike in the East. Quiet is assured by the prohibition
of all traffic on the streets surrounding the palace
after eight o'clock In the evening.

Gulistan is preserved in its former splendor, with
its great audience hall containing the famous Peacock
Throne. It was built in the shape of a roomy plat-
form, the conventional type of Oriental throne, upon

i8o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

which the monarch entertained his most highly hon-
ored guests. Upon this throne many Shahs have
sat. It is jeweled in arabesque, and outstanding
among the many delicate figures carved thereon are
two perky little peacocks, perched on top of the high
back of the throne. At the highest point of the
ornate back of the wide throne, between the pea-
cocks, is a revolving wheel of mirrors. The long,
slender, flat spokes are so slanted that as they turn
they reflect the light from all angles. The mech-
anism is invisible and consists of a chain which passes
over a cogged wheel back of the mirrors. The pea-
cock throne was spoils of war, and was taken from the
Great Mogul of India by Nadir Shah when he con-
quered Bengal and sacked Delhi.

In the great Gulistan gardens are many subsidiary
buildings, among them the Chems-el-Imaret, with
its Hall of Brilliants. It has been occupied by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a six-story building
which was once the harem; it has towers on each end
and a flat roof between. Its facade, ornamented with
enameled tiles and stained glass, faces the main street
which leads to the great bazaar, and it is not difficult
to imagine merchants from India and far Cathay
spreading their tempting wares before the latticed
windows. It has now been turned into business of-
fices. Gulistan means "|51ace of the roses." With
its flower-bordered pools, its splashing fountains, and
its great pine, cypress, plane and poplar trees setting
off the palace buildings, as emeralds surround a dia-
mond, it presents an external appearance of fanciful,
unreal beauty.

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 181

In a building next to Gullstan Palace, In a room
on the ground floor, Is a white marble throne once
possessed by Kerlm Khan, who ruled Iran from
Shiraz as representative of the Zand dynasty. He
was the Immediate predecessor of the Kajar dynasty
which was deposed by Riza Shah. It has a spacious
platform supported by caryatids. On state occasions
the curtains which separate It from the main court-
yard are drawn aside, and It is reflected In a wide
pool in which It seems to rise from the depths and
float In fairy-like Arabian Nights beauty. Riza Pah-
lavl sat on the Nadir throne for his coronation. It
is a triumph of Indian art In wood carving with pure
gold overlay. A smiling tiger crouches at its foot;
cheerful dragons obligingly support the seat; the
back, sides and other flat surfaces are pierced with
an Intricate pattern and lavishly jeweled. It is
spacious and of regal dignity, but it is a one-man
throne. It too was brought from Delhi by Nadir
Shah, the conqueror. It had not been used for over
a century, and is now known as the Pahlavi Throne.

Riza crowned himself instead of having the cere-
mony performed by the highest clerical potentate
because he wished to take no chance of that emblem
of power and authority being placed on his head
slantingly, for a crooked crown would have Indi-
cated an unhappy reign. He set it on squarely and
firmly. This superstition affects some English minds
as well. A friend wrote me after the coronation of
King George VI: "He will have a troublous reign.
His crown did not sit straight on his head." Riza
Shah does not make use of a throne. He receives his

i8s> A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

own ministers and representatives of foreign powers
standing in the Hall of Brilliants.

The great throne room of the Gulistan palace is
reached by a wide stair which winds up from the
vestibule inside the great portals. Along the way
small pieces of mirror glass reflect all surrounding
light and color and give a twinkling feeling of ex-
citement, which is a fitting prelude to the glamor
that awaits. The hall, vast and vaulted, is well pro-
portioned and has many alcove recesses in which
have been arranged innumerable presents to pre-
vious Shahs from the crowned heads of the world:
gold encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and
other precious stones. From Toledo has come steel
intricately inlaid with gold; from Milan the finest
glass, from China porcelains, ivory and lacquer; a
miscellaneous array so profuse that one is dazzled.
Jewels are everywhere in countless numbers. Grad-
ually there emerges from the shimmering iridescence
the sword of Tamerlane; the handle and scabbard
blaze with multi-hued color and light; seals in intag-
lio and in raised relief, the impress of which had
meant life or death; crowns, helmets, scepters, the
$400,000 hookah from which Muzaffar-ed-Din
smoked; headdress and turban ornaments; shields,
epaulets, necklaces, bracelets set with topaz, ame-
thyst, turquoise, sapphire and pearl; gold cups and
flagons set so thick with gems they must have cut the
hands that held them. The rims were smooth so the
lips which pressed against them could drink deep.
The royal jewels of Iran are considered the greatest

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 183

in the world, but they have never been tabulated,
as they say "to count rubles" Is to lose them.

There Is evidence In cliff carvings and tombs that
Iranian appreciation of jewelry goes back to four
thousand years before Christ. Here, as In Egypt,
rings, breastplates, and other treasures burled with
the dead were, with Incalculable labor and the ut-
most skill, covered with extraordinary jewels.

This magnificence fulfils one's utmost expectation
of Oriental sumptuousness. The architecture Is In
keeping with generosity in decoration; the lavishness
and color do not seem too ornate, perhaps because
the palace Is surrounded by gardens which are also
a dream of beauty, with their artificial lakes, splash-
ing fountains, noble cypresses, stately poplars and
chenars, blossoming and fruiting trees with tender
new leaves. The faience tiles which completely
cover the Inner surface of the high enclosing garden
walls are so designed that the colors blend with the
trees and flowers and thus remove the Impression of
a wall. The completeness of this ancient and splen-
did palace, Its vividness of color, the proportionate
wrought patterns of facades, roofs, and courts, seem
to tell the visitor that it has special significance; and
so it has, for it was built to celebrate the removal of
the capital of Iran from Isfahan to Teheran; to out-
shine the Golden Age o Shah Abbas in the earlier
capital and to establish the glory of the Kajar Kings,
under a remarkable natural leader of men, Nadir
Shah. Rising from humble origin, the life of this
Eastern Luminary resembled in many ways that of
Napoleon, in a spectacular and brilliant, though

184 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

brief, career, which for a little while led Iran to a
summit of fame and power in the Middle East. Only
for one crowded hour, however, for he was assassin-
ated in 1747. Eventually tribal chiefs who had
slowly but surely, through the kaleidoscopic changes
of the eighteenth century, extended their strength
and influence, seized the throne. Under Aga Mo-
hammed Khan, a eunuch and a demon, the Kajar
dynasty was founded in 1794 and lasted until its
overthrow in 1925 by an army officer named Riza
Khan.

In Hamadan the great palace of Queen Esther has
gone. Nothing is visible today but a broken stone
lion toppled in the dust at the base of the bare hill.
But her tomb remains in what was an old Jewish
cemetery. The original tomb was destroyed when
Tamerlane sacked Hamadan. The present build-
ing, however, is on the same site. It is square with
a small wing on one side and is surmounted by a
brick cupola resembling a gigantic beehive which
unintentionally is symbolic of the industry of her
people. The entrance is under an unpretentious
arch. The actual opening is so low that one has to
bend low in order to enter. The door is made of a
single stone hewn with pivots of stone at the top and
bottom, which fit into deep stone sockets; on these it
turns. I followed along a low winding passage into
the vaulted crypt. The walls are dim from the smoke
of oil lamps and tapers used to light the way of
thousands of pilgrims. This is a shrine for both Mo-
hammedans and Jews. In the center of the dim
chamber are two graves. Each is covered by an ebony

AN ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 185

ark-shaped sarcophagus inscribed with Hebrew let-
ters eulogizing Esther and Mordecai. Sacred texts
and other records of value have been placed here
for safe keeping.

Iran's great mosques express the eloquence and
subtlety of the Mohammedan art. Those at Qum,
Shiraz, Qhomain and the two masterpieces in Isfahan
built by Shah Abbas are all noteworthy examples of
the Iranian style of religious architecture. For the
townspeople the mosques, upon which generations
of craftsmen have lavished their skill, have been what
the great cathedrals of Europe were in the Middle
Ages places of assembly as well as of prayer, an ex-
pression in which at critical times the corporate
memory and interests of the race have sprung Into
vivid life.

The mosque, Musjid-i-Shah, at Isfahan, could have
held within its walled court the whole population
when it was built. The clear pool of water before
its beautiful entrance is so large that it reflects the
tiled fagade, the glowing turquoise glory of the
domes, and the inlaid minarets. The prayer niche,
or mihrab, is decorated with intertwining sea-green
vines and lotus flowers which seem to be alive. The
other mosque of Sheikh Lutf Allah has its gateway
faced with dazzling faience, its yellow dome decor-
ated in flowing patterns of black and colored tiles
which dust does not dim. Through the fenestra-
tions of its stone windows a gentle light falls. Some-
times the doves come in; they are, to the Iranians,
as to us, symbols of the eternal spirit of man. The
architectural feature of especial note is the remark-

i86 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

able series of curves of the entrance hallway, which is
one hundred feet long and turns a right angle. The
planes of the ceiling change as they cover this arcade
from the entrance gate of the enclosure to the door
of the mosque. They resemble facets; they are so
delicately cut, that even without symmetry each leads
harmoniously to the next. In building, this difficulty
arose because traditionally the prayer niche must be
on the side nearest to Mecca, in order that the imam
may face that holy city when offering his petitions.
In order to preserve the symmetry of the square, the
entrance archway, instead of being opposite the
mosque entrance, is almost at a right angle; so, in
order to have one lead directly to the other, this
remarkable corridor had to be erected.

The shimmering blues and greens of the tiles in
these mosques take on in certain lights a coat of
silver. The light on them varies at different times
of the day; the walls vibrate as high lights alternate
with shadows. The large arches opening on three
sides, admit the sun to glorify each surface. The
spiritual expression in these houses of God seems to
me more poignant than in the majority of Christian
cathedrals. The entrance arches sweep up toward
the sky with an unmistakable quality of outward
soaring. Entering a mosque through one of these
great portals gives a feeling of suspense, followed by
a culmination which lifts the spirit rejoicing to its
Creator. For a moment the interior seems shadowy,
but as soon as the pupils of the eyes relax it becomes
a vast, airy place of bewildering glory. The irides-
cent maze of delicate tile in intricate arabesque de-

AX ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEY 187

signs, the colors of cobalt, turquoise, green and rose,
shining like gems, stimulate the Imagination. Its
rhythms are infectious.

The Blue Mosque of Tabriz, one of the finest
fifteenth-century Mohammedan buildings, Is now In
ruins. The beauty of Its rich blue tiles Is heightened
by the arabesque scrolls and the interim patterns of
faience In salmon, yellow, black and white, which
enliven what Is left of the Interior and cover the
characteristic long thin bricks of which the mosque
is built.

To preserve and encourage the arts which have
made Iran a treasure house, the new School of Art
in Teheran is training specialists In the weaving of
rugs, painting of miniatures, making of tiles, and all
the other arts and crafts for which Iran has long been
distinguished. Ironically, the construction of this
Art School, dedicated to the revival and preservation
of national art, has caused the destruction of a most
interesting ancient palace in which there was a series
of mural paintings.

With the rise of nationalism, there has been a
renaissance of Interest, not only in ancient art, but
also in originating those things which are called for
everywhere in the modernizing of homes and cities;
so the Art School is humming with activity in archi-
tecture, sculpture, drawing, painting, designing,
wood carving, pottery and inlay, and weaving of ex-
quisite brocades for hangings, garments, and furni-
ture coverings. It is preparing for the art of the
future as well as preserving that of the past.

XIII
RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES

THE history of Iran as a race and a nation is
inextricably woven with the history of her re-
ligious experience. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Chris-
tianity, and Mohammedanism have each in turn
played a vital part in molding her thought, culture,
and mode of life. It is only possible, within the
scope of this chapter, to consider briefly the illumin-
ating similarities and the essential differences among
them, which have most influenced Iran. In addi-
tion to the ideology which is part of all human as-
piration, there are amazing parallels among these
religions.

The teachings of Zoroaster have a high ethical
content. They present God, Ahura-Mazda, as King
of Kings, Creator of all good things, omniscient and
foreknowing, who created the world in six days and
whose greatest creation was a righteous man. Ahri-
man was the devil, father of lies, destroyed at the
end of time. God created Heaven and Hell and
Purgatory. In the world he created all that is good
and taught that good ultimately triumphs. He drove
man and woman from Paradise for sin. Zoroaster

188

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 189

also taught the resurrection from the dead, the Im-
mortality of the soul, and the Last Judgment.

Zoroastrlans believe in five cardinal points: the
personality of God; the holy triad of Humata, Hukta,
Hvarshta (good thoughts, good words, and good
deeds); the Inexorable law of righteousness; the fu-
ture recompense for good and evil; the final coming
of the kingdom through the cooperation of man.

His conversations contain thoughts, the counter-
parts of which In Christ's teaching are obvious:

"Turning misfortunes and calamities into lessons
and blessings."

"Where findeth my soul a helper . . . save in Right
and in Thee, O God."

"That nature alone is good which shall not do
unto another whatsoever is not good for its own self/'

"The holy law standeth ever at thy door in the
persons of thy brethren."

"It is necessary for us to promote whatever is His
wish, that our wish may be realized."

"Out of sin cometh the punishment connected
with it/'

"He who sows grain sows righteousness."

"He has gained nothing who has not gained the
soul."

"The dead shall rise, life shall return to their
bodies, and they shall breathe again . . . each one of
them when created by me was therein more difficult
than causing the resurrection . . . the whole world
shall become free from old age and death, from cor-
ruption and decay, forever and forever."

igo A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Further parallels are:

Christ Zoroaster

The guiding star beheld by Supernatural manifestations
the Magi and by the shep- at nativity
herds, etc

Christ's instruction from the Precocious and amazing

priests in the temple and child at seven, initiated into

His capacity to converse with mysteries of religion by a

them venerable sage

Beginning of Christ's minis- Turned to a religious life at
try at thirty twenty; went out alone to

fast and meditate

Small group of fishermen Began his ministry with
His first disciples. Attention small group of followers,
first drawn to Christ by heal- and performing of a miracle
ing miracles among them, restoring sight

to the blind

Four Gospels Four sacred books the

Gathas

God Jehovah Elohim the Monotheistic Ahura-
Creator Mazda, the Creator

Scholars are divided as to whether the residence
of the Jews in Babylon, bringing them into long con-
tact with Zoroastrian religious influence, is respon-
sible for their belief in the resurrection, the final
judgment, a Messiah to come, and Satan, or whether
these beliefs are the product solely of Hebraic think-
ing. In any case, they became prominent only after
the captivity.

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 191

Zoroaster, the son of Pour us Haspa and Dughdora,
was born about 1000 B.C., "beautiful as well as strong
In body and mind/' While still a youth, he intro-
duced a religion in which Ahura-Mazda was wor-
shiped as God. His symbols were earth, air, fire,
water, these elements representing truth and purity.
He convinced the people that the old doevas or
nature gods were idols and that true worship re-
quired purity of the mind, the fulfilment of duty and
self-support through agriculture. Zoroaster, "First
Tiller of Land," realized that "the plow was the
noblest and most useful instrument against confu-
sion and disorder." The Gathas, which are the
oldest part of the Zend-Avesta, are filled with ethical
teaching and a fine balance between body and soul.
A prayer reads: "I pray for that mighty power by
which we may smite evil . . Give me nourishment,
a cultivated mind, and an active soul; offspring vir-
tuous and intelligent; deliver men from misery and
woe/' "Do not acquire the riches of the material
world at cost of the spiritual." Under this creed
there was neither feasting nor slothf illness. "Arise!
he who rises first enters the best world, driving away
idleness and procrastination/'

Many of the famous Greek writers in the seventh
century before Christ were familiar with Zoroastrian
ideas and conceptions, which through them have
directly and indirectly influenced Western civiliza-
tion. His teachings made a profound impression in
molding the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem relig-
ions. The Zoroastrian king, Darius, accepted the
responsibility of representing God upon the earth,

ig* A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

and was so broad-minded he not only liberated the
Jews in Babylon but allowed them to rebuild their
own temples in Jerusalem, which was then part of
the Persian Empire.

The Zoroastrian religion still survives in spite of
the determination of the Mohammedans after the
Arab conquest, A.D. 681, to destroy it and its influ-
ences. There are Parsee families in practically every
city in Iran; there are many in Kerman. They greatly
object to being referred to as "fire worshipers"; one
explained to me that it is just as offensive as it would
be to call a Christian a cross worshiper, since the
cross too is only a symbol. No ceremony is more im-
pressively beautiful and uplifting than that of the
Parsees when they pray at sunset. I often saw them
in Bombay as they stood on the shore of the Indian
Ocean, when, in their long white robes after loosen-
ing the ceremonial cord around their waists, they
lifted their arms and heads to heaven to receive God's
evening benediction.

The Iranians who accepted the Mohammedan re-
ligion did not altogether forsake their loyalty to
Zoroastrianism, for they subtly developed a type of
Islam which embodies many of the ancient religious
ideas; and fire, as typified by the sun, and earth, and
air, still speaks to them of God in the voice of nature.
It has been said in praise of the moral idealism of
Riza Shah Pahlavi, that in crusading against corrup-
tion and intrigue he upholds Zoroaster's conception
of the struggle between the good and evil genius.
Everywhere there is evidence of a return to the in-
spirational teaching of the ancient prophet. Zoro-

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 193

aster's Insistence upon truthfulness receives renewed
approval. Young people are reading the Gathas
carefully, and find that much In them has been used
by later religions or philosophers. What Is called
"the civilized conscience" accepts what Is socially
useful In Zoroastrlanism.

When the conquering Arabs forced the heavy
cloak of Islamic Inactivity upon the shoulders of
Iran, they brought, together with Mohammed's re-
ligious ideas, a vast collection of civil, criminal, and
prohibitory laws which Involved the entire life of a
Moslem In a network of observances, whether he was
a true believer or secret agnostic. There were pri-
marily five duties for every believer to perform: i.e.,
declaration of faith, prayer, almsgiving, the fast of
Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Mo-
hammedan year has a number of saints' days, vary-
ing with the locality; the observance of these has
undoubtedly encouraged habits of procrastination
and been the cause of much laziness. Many of these,
however, have been abolished recently.

Mohammedanism In Iran cannot justly be spoken
of without distinguishing between the philosophic
mysticism of the Sufis, the legalism of the tradition-
alists, and the decadent external formalism of which
we have most often heard. It is true that the Sufis
are loosely attached to, but never completely sepa-
rated from, the Mohammedans. Their name indi-
cates a person who wears wool (suf) and their cos-
tume is an imitation of the garb of the Christian
monks, whom the Sufis admired and by whom many
of them were taught. They are considered saints and

194 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

are parallel to the Christian mystics, Saint Augustine,
St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Theresa, and others.

The Sufis, in contrast with the Mullahs, take no
part in the secular affairs of the people, but live the
life of the spirit apart from all material concern.
But they are not exactly hermits, for they mingle
with the people to discuss philosophy, art, life,
poetry, in fact all that pertains to man's soul. Among
the Sufis are numbered many poets. Some do not
marry because they maintain that human love dis-
tracts the thoughts from God. Others consider mar-
riage a step toward loving God through a better
understanding of people. They believe in rigorous
self-discipline and live a life of extreme poverty;
some of them go about with their "begging bowls/'
by which they eke out an existence; they are willing
to be dead to the world in order to gain spiritual
life and bring the divine to man. People acquire
merit by giving to them, because in return they can
be helped by prayers. They have helped to create
and preserve culture in art and literature as Chris-
tian monks have done. Some till the fields to feed
themselves, the poor, and the afflicted.

Their homes, kkan-a-qahi, are in most large
towns. Here wanderers find the necessities, a fra-
ternal welcome, and the companionship of those who
love the Sufi poets.

The vein of mysticism, which has slenderly run
through Iran's faith, is best known in the philosophy
of the Sufis. The Moslem says: "There is no god
but God/' The Sufi says: "There is nothing but
God no classes, no nationalities; a blade of wheat,

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 195

the petal of a poppy, the love of men and women,
all are part of God."

The traditional legalists were those who guided
civil life according to the traditions of the Koran;
their power has waned in the last ten years, for the
government accepts less and less the traditions of
the theologians, and where their teaching contradicts
progress, it Is Ignored altogether.

The Shah is determined to have his country
modern, scientific, crisp with reform In the living
of all his people. Religion must recognize and con-
form to this progress. All the citizenry Is subject to
Its ruler, the King of Kings; after that they can at-
tend to their spiritual life.

Islam grants social equality to all men under Allah,
hence averting such class-consciousness as exists in
India's caste system. But It does reserve two excep-
tionsthe clergy and the descendants of Mohammed.
For these dignitaries respect was widespread and,
through the hands of the mullahs, their religious
law has until lately been temporal law.

Until the adoption of the Constitution in 1906,
there existed only the religious and the statute law.
But as European codes have now been officially
adopted, the Shah has made a sharp division between
the Church and the State.

But the religious hold Is tenacious. For the mul-
lahs acted in all official capacities, and consequently
knew intimately the lives of all dwellers in their
parishes. The law was their principal source of live-
lihood; they were always able to hide behind the

196 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Koran as divine revelation, thus maintaining a strong
grip on the people.

The quiet opposition of many of these mullahs
is the strongest conservative force in the land. But
the Shah will brook no opposition. And as their
power wanes, they see their aristocratic position van-
ishing. They have not taken it lightly, and have tried
to rouse the people against the new customs, but
they have been chastised and given to understand
that their business is entirely within their mosques.

In the past many citizens saw no great harm in
dishonesty, crime, or immorality as long as they
performed their religious observances. Affirmative
ethical values were secondary to external formalism.

The peculiar system of jurisprudence which grew
out of the Koran, however, was often at variance
both with the principles and the spirit of the prophet.
It was so modified and rewritten by mullahs of later
periods that not all reprehensible features of the
doctrine can be charged against Mohammed.

The Koran condemns injustice, falsehood, pride,
avarice, debauchery, and suspicion; while benevo-
lence, liberality, patience, sincerity, love of peace
and truth, modesty, and, above all, trust in God and
submission to His will are considered the signs of
true piety. Mohammed did not advocate the doc-
trine of absolute predestination and fatality, a doc-
trine which destroys all individual responsibility and
which has, among later theologians, become a fixed
pillar in the creed. This doctrine instilled the drug
of fatalism in Iran.

Today, fanaticism is so weakened that there is no

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 197

excitement over things which ten years ago would
have been resented as insults. Among other things,
the Shah has discouraged the fantastic mourning
which for more than a thousand years has been a
yearly religious practice, when the Shiah Moslems
celebrate, during the month of Muharram, the suffer-
ing and martyrdom of the Imam, Hussein, son of
AH and grandson of Mohammed, who was killed at
Kerbela. This is the first month of the Moham-
medan year. During the first ten days of this month,
mullahs recite all day and half the night the story of
Hussein's defeat and death in the battle of Kerbela.

During these days In the past, black draperies
shrouded the bazaars and other public places, and
many people wore black; the streets were avenues of
gloom, and In the homes the anderun was woefully
dull, for the gay dresses and bright-colored house
chadars of the women were replaced by long black
or white veils. During this period there were no
marriages or festivities. Men and women still crowd
into the mosques* enclosures, moan and groan, sing
and weep; the sound can be heard for blocks as the
mourners become more and more excited and fanati-
cal; they cry aloud until exhausted, but now, by
order of the Shah, the streets are quiet.

Until recently this religious excitement has cul-
minated in a procession of frenzied followers of the
prophet, going through the streets clad in sackcloth,
hysterically shrieking, screaming, and wailing; others
chanting dirges and beating their breasts; some with
chains bruising their backs, or with many-tailed
whips flagellating themselves until streams of blood

ig8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

followed the lashes. Castlgatlons and mutilations
indicated religious fervor. The more zealous struck
their gory foreheads with swords as they staggered
along, reenacting the great miracle play of Islam; as
a penance, as a plea for favor, or as an outlet for the
repressions of a despondent religion, and the reward
of going straight to heaven if they died of their self-
inflicted wounds.

In 1933 the Shah reduced these processions to
three days and forbade the more primitive expres-
sions. In most towns the exhibitionism was con-
fined mainly to partly closed squares in which the
people had to walk round and round, so reducing the
spectacle to comparative privacy, which in turn re-
duced the enthusiasm, especially as those who wished
to cut themselves were permitted to do so only out
in the country before dawn, and must bathe imme-
diately afterward. This deprived the martyrs of the
admiration and sympathy of bystanders. The Shah,
I was told, had with great wisdom diverted the people
by founding a more cheerful outlet for their emo-
tions. A street carnival with bands, floats, clowns,
dancers, and organized applause resulted. Ordinary
carts and horses were decorated; automobiles were
gaily trimmed; shops and people were colorfully
decked. The streets in the business section became
a playground. Increasing multitudes assembled to
see the carnival and expend their emotion in joy in-
stead of in vicarious grief.

Six hundred miles east from Teheran is the sacred
Shrine City of Meshed, one of the three most im-
portant religious centers of the Moslem world. The

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 199

gates of the mosque enclosure are inlaid with pre-
cious stones, the pillars of rare marble, the walls
decorated with gold leaf and other precious metals.

Three hundred years ago, the far-seeing Shah
Abbas discouraged pilgrimages to Mecca. The way
across Arabia is long; the money spent by the way
and the high tax to enter the Holy City and find
maintenance there had better be spent going to
Meshed, which is on Iran's soil, near the Afghan
border, in the opposite direction from Mecca. These
patriotic and economic reasons are so sound that the
shrine tomb in which an Imam is buried has become
as potent in comforting the followers of Mohammed
as was formerly a stay in the birthplace of the
prophet. Those who have made the journey are
given the distinctive title, "Meshedi."

By the educated Iranian, death is usually accepted
calmly; its inescapable solemnity is regarded as an
inevitable part of life. The bodies of the wealthy
are treated with chemicals and, in the dry heat o
summer, mummify. They are temporarily buried
or placed on shelves to await an opportunity of trans-
fer for burial beside a shrine. For to them, and to
their relatives, there is mystic satisfaction in being
laid to rest where the blessing of a saint may fall on
them. The corpses are accompanied by members of
their families, who acquire the merit of a pilgrimage.
Those from northern Iran usually go to Meshed.
Those from the southern part may be carried as deck
cargo from Bushire to Basra; by train from there to
Baghdad, and by caravan on to Holy Kerbela or
Mecca, The Shah and the health officials, however,

200 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IEAN

disapprove of this, and it is rapidly lessening as it is
discouraged by education and by the high fees and
taxes for transportation of corpses.

When Islam was split up into two great rival sects,
Shiah and Sunni, Iran became the stronghold of the
former; Egypt, all North Africa, and Turkey are
Sunni. Iran wished to emphasize its independence
of thought. The present estimate is that upwards
of 70 per cent of the people in Iran belong to the
Shiite sect, according to which All and his wife Fa-
tima, Mohammed's daughter, and their descendants
are considered the true leaders of the faithful. Some
800,000, principally Kurds, in the northwestnear
the Turkish border are Sunnite. This sect con-
siders that Mohammed's uncle and his male relatives,
who became the first four Caliphs, are his rightful
successors. The aid of All, his son-in-law, is today
more frequently invoked by the Shiah sect than that
of the Prophet. Wide tolerance is exercised toward
the followers of other religions in places where Euro-
peans reside, but elsewhere they are sometimes op-
pressed by the lower classes of the population.

Spiritually, Iran is now at a crossroad. As a pro-
gressive government makes the Church conform to
the State, the autocratic authority of the religion of
temporal observances begins to waver where it does
not fit into modern life either in teaching or in
practice.

Christianity was introduced in the first six cen-
turies A.D., and spread rapidly. During the reign of
Marcus Aurelius, there were no less than twenty-five
bishops between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 201

Sea. It was not long after this that the Nestorian
controversy drove large numbers of Christians out of
the Roman Empire into Iran, and this land became
the center of a great missionary enterprise for the
conversion of the East, The Zoroastrians began to
fear that the whole country would become Christian.
Persecution, which at first only furthered the spread
of the faith, became later indiscriminate murder,
and it is said that 1 0,000 Christians were put to death.
The Moslem invasion completed the destruction of
the Church. But to this day there are small com-
munities of Assyrian and other Christian groups in
different parts o Iran.

It is not likely that the State will adopt any offi-
cial religion; the days of the Church-State are over;
but to remain theoretically Moslem preserves unity.
"We must keep the Koran, but get rid of the stupid
explanations," said the philosopher-mullah, Saddrah
of Shiraz, who taught that religion must alter with
time. Wilson Cash, in his book, Persia, Old and
New, relates: "I sat one day talking with a man who
knew Iran as few men do, one who could count as
his personal friends the highest in the land, and I
asked him what he thought of Islam today. His
reply was: Islam is dead.' He went on to explain
that while the illiterate people are still strongly
Moslem, the educated people are rapidly becoming
indifferent. Looking into the future, he could see
no hope whatever for Islam there. I then put a
second question. 'Do you think they will entirely
drift into secularism?' Again he gave a startling an-
swer. 'No/ he said, 'they are too religious to remain

202 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

materialists for long. But some day a religion that
suits Iranians will come to this land and they will
accept it, or develop a form of their own.' "

There are many well-educated and traveled Iran-
ians who believe the Moslem religion is not only the
best but is suitable for all countries, in that all men
need set laws within their capacity to keep. On the
other hand, many of the young Iranians believe
Islam was useful in its day but is no longer helpful
to those who are not mentally a century behind the
times. An awakened youth demands social service
as a way to regeneration, and the complete absence
of such activity among Moslem religious leaders
makes the modern man turn away from it. Increas-
ingly the majority of the people are coming to see
that old Islam and the new methods of government
are contradictory.

It may justly be said that the Shah has instituted
a new psychology called "Iranianism." For the sake
of national unity, he wants his subjects to feel that
they are Iranians before everything else. This form
of national consciousness is something new. Only a
few years ago, a man was known solely by his re-
ligion. The Moslem ruled; the Jew, the Armenian
Christian, and the Parsee were treated contemptu-
ously and obliged to wear distinguishing marks of
dress, which, happily, they really preferred as an
expression of group strength and loyalty. By it they
could be detected and were often scorned, which
increased their pride and bitterness. Now all in-
habitants of the country must wear the same modern
dress; all invidious distinctions have been abolished.

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 203

Mosques that have been closed to non-Moslems are
open to them now. Be he Moslem, Jew, Parsee or
Armenian, a man now Is Srst and foremost an Iran-
Ian, Age-old barriers have broken down as men of
different races and creeds are being welded into a
single nation.

Can Nationalism be a satisfactory religion? We
who watch the events of Central Europe are Inclined
to answer In a violent negative. Yet we must wait
and see what happens In the Near and Mid-East.
The pages of its new history are but freshly -written,
the ink not dry. It may well be that tolerant na-
tional unity is.first necessary to create national pride
great enough to support a religion in which it can
find its fullest expression.

It Is interesting to consider Christianity In con-
nection with the present changes. For It Is Christian
thought which Iran is absorbing in her adoption of
western modes of life, whether the majority of Its
inhabitants are aware of this or not. The new cus-
toms are the material expression of Christianity's
ethics of good living, self-Improvement, purity of
soul and godliness, the Ideals of Europe and the
Americas.

Iran owes its present nationalistic and domestic
ideals to Christianity, and, as Mohammed was in-
fluenced by 660 years of Christianity, historically we
know that It helped to create Islam. They are not
actually as far apart today as in the old, intolerant
days when neither tried to understand or find any-
thing good In the other.

Missionaries have spread the Gospel by their lives,

204 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

through mission-school instruction, by hospitals, and
by their helpfulness in all directions. There is os-
tensibly complete freedom of religion in Iran, but
to an extent those who have adopted Christianity
and there are about a thousand Christians in Iran-
still find that, temporarily at least, it restricts their
fields of action.

Iran has had abundant reason to be disgusted by
"Christian aggression/' It is only since she has suc-
cessfully defeated the greed of two great powers that
many of the people are able to discard their old
distrust and hatred of "Christians," who marched
armies in to rob them of their most valuable resour-
ces. This un-Christian behavior of old Russia and
of England toward Iran, and the failure in all Chris-
tian countries to live up to their standards, is enough
to damn in the eyes of Moslems the religion we
represent. The thoughtful, however, have the dis-
crimination not to confuse the ideal with its practice,
thus making allowance for our common human na-
ture. That the Iranians can make this distinction
shows the excellence of the long helpful work of the
missionaries in teaching and healing. Of course, the
individual belief in kindness, brotherliness, freedom,
and equal opportunity for all is strong and must
eventually prevail In these and in conscientious
behavior in the transaction of business, in home life,
and in general social advance, Christianity justifies
itself.

Iran is perfecting its new order of government and
straining valiantly toward its social goal; this must
include a philosophical study of spritual values and

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 205

may eventually succeed in evolving a broader, more
truly Christian life than western people have accom-
plished, for Asiatics are by nature more faithful to
their belief than we as a whole have been. Iranians
have the potentiality to develop the art of living,
with a consistent spiritual content that may lead the
world and will be hailed with joy by those who, with
this belief before them, have labored long. But-
one cannot emphasize this too stronglyIran's even-
tual religion must evolve out of her own individual
spirit and character, through the medium of her
peculiar thought and culture, if it is to be a faith
which she can call her own. And only when thus
assimilated can this faith, in turn, make a special
contribution to the western world, giving to us a
regenerative impetus away from materialism toward
spiritual reawakening practical idealism in action.

XIV
THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS

"TT is hardly an exaggeration to summarize the
A history of the last four hundred years/' says
ex-President Lowell of Harvard University, "by say-
ing that the leading idea of a conquering nation in
relation to the conquered was, in 1600, to change
their religion, in 1700 to change their laws, in 1800
to change their trade, and in 1900 to change their
drainage." Might we not also sum up the advance
of these four centuries by saying that on the prow
of the conquering ship of progress, first stood the
priest, then the lawyer, then the merchant, and
finally the physician.

The relation of the part played by the doctor in
the advancement of Iran is indeed far-reaching and
important, for the things which have retarded it are
all associated in some way with a lack of hygiene.
Fundamentally, the Irani have health, strength, a
capacity to endure and revive, or they would not
have survived wars and epidemics, together with the
tremendous climatic changes; burning summer heat
under the direct rays of the sun, and the freezing
cold, deep snows, and bitter winter winds, with the
slight protection of their scant clothing and mud
houses, to say nothing of the spring floods from tor-
rential mountain rains.

206

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 207

The upper wealthy class merchants and owners
of villages has been through the centuries a small
proportion of the population. There has been almost
no middle class as we know it. Artisans, poets, and
philosophers, whom one would expect to fit into
such a group except when, as court favorites, they
were lifted to an economic position above their fel-
lows, lived as simply as the peasants themselves. The
peasants, who were the working and the fighting
force of the nation, had little to call their own, and,
with a minimum of food and comfort, were those
who would naturally have been wiped out by con-
tagious illnesses and war exhaustion; yet it is they
who survive today.

Privation developed hardihood in them. They
are the survival of the fittest and, besides, there have
usually been several hundred years between wars,
giving long periods for recuperation of man power
and natural resources. The strength of the Iranians
has been rebuilt in part by their healthful diet of
cheese, dates, and other fruits; milk, rice, wheat, and
abstinence from alcohol. Their daily habits are hy-
gienic; their work requires gentle exercise all day
out of doors, and they have no nervous reactions from
anxieties, such as are part of more complicated living.

The causes of the rise and fall of culture as they
relate to the dictum, "A sound mind in a sound
body/' are to the doctor a fascinating study from
many standpoints, among them wars, famines, stress
and strain of all sorts. In the days of Avicenna of
Ectabana, the modern Hamadan of Iran, there was
greater scientific knowledge in Arabia and Iran than

2 o8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

anywhere else in the world; but in the sixteenth cen-
tury, due to wars, scientific progress had been re-
tarded and was so slow that the pharmacopeias of
Iran, like many in Europe, reverted to the primi-
tive and contained in their pages prescriptions for
such things as love powders, protection against an
enemy, etc. Among the ingredients were pulverized
precious stones and live toads.

The reputation o Arabians for culture was due
to the fact that, before they conquered Spain in 71 1,
they had been for a hundred years under the schol-
arly influence of Iran. Her astronomers and doctors
were among the most notable scholars of the day.
Unfortunately, their teaching and methods, in the
hands of their followers, became involved with nec-
romancy, divination, omens, portents and astrology;
and in such hands the practice of medicine degener-
ated into superstitions and magic. There was no
advance beyond the earlier scientific system, shared
by the Iranians and the Greeks, but in the Western
world this was gradually expanded and superseded
by improvements as the centuries advanced.

Despite her heritage of a foundation worthy of a
scientific superstructure, Iran has been especially
backward in developing this, notably as regards the
knowledge and practice of medicine. The unhealthy
condition under which the people have lived during
the last thousand years has retarded development,
and has taken a heavy toll of life. It has been the
result of continued ignorance of personal and munic-
ipal hygiene.

In surgery the blunders were gross and terrible;

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 209

under Islam animal experimentation, or the dissec-
tion of dead bodies, was considered a crime. Witch
doctors and quacks were recognized and much
sought, for people who are helpless from illness must
seek medical aid, even i it be only by nostrums or
incantation. The drug doctors used herbs and
"hearsay" methods.

The use of blowing, spitting, and stroking to heal
the sick are still common leftovers from ancient
animism, some of which Mohammed incorporated
into his teachings. These methods originated per-
haps from pagan Arabian fables. There is still a
belief that certain birds, beasts, and fish are endowed
with reason, strength, and intelligence which, in
dying, they can transmit.

But the strongest superstition still extant concerns
the power of the evil eye. Moslems have difficulty
in explaining this satisfactorily to a Westerner. It
is described as adverse animal magnetism. Moham-
med is said to have believed in this disastrous in-
fluence, and to have approved of the use of charms to
avert it. Certain substances are supposed to contain
a soul-stuff which will insure protection. Blood is
effective; a sheep is often killed so that its blood may
be sprinkled on the foundations and doorposts of a
new building a custom reminiscent of Moses and
the Exodus. Metals such as iron, gold, silver, and
brass are helpful. For this reason a large pair of
scissors or some other steel implement will be placed
at the head of the bed during the birth of a child,
and will be fastened to its cradle afterwards. During
the Middle Ages in Europe, ideas just as fantastic

210 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

as these prevailed. In Iran many a woman has been
known to tie a large padlock and two or three keys
around her waist, hopeful that the evil influence will
be repelled and that she can then become a mother
of sons.

Even today in some of the new, clean, and airy
factories which have recently been built, there is an
incongruous esfand; a charm made of the berries of
the desert-grown dashtee plant, combined with bits
of blue and pink material, to ward off the "evil eye,"
for one must protect the modern machinery, as any-
thing new and surprising is particularly apt to at-
tract the evil eye. The dashtee berry was sacred to
the Zoroastrians. It is still burned every morning
on their home hearth fires, as well as at marriages
and funerals, in order to drive away evil spirits. It
is said to have been connected with the rites of an-
cient religions antedating Zoroastrianism, and it is
considered safer to continue what has so long proved
protective.

Even dogs are cited as feeling the "evil eye" and
shrinking away. Individuals of a covetous nature,
both those who are jealous and those who simply
admire excessively, are said to have it. One cannot
be sure who may possess it. Innocent people as well
as enemies are accused; consequently no one stares
even for a moment at another person, and everyone
guards zealously against being considered prying,
unduly interested, envious, or whatever quality is
at the base of this superstition. If some one whom
you chance to pass should look upon you with "an
evil eye," you would become sick or stumble at your

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 211

next step, and thereafter be visited by any number
of woes.

Blue beads and tiny shells are considered espe-
cially effective in warding off evil. There was the case
of a woman who was brought into the hospital at
Hamadan over which Dr. J. Arthur Funk presided
with such brilliant and unassuming success. Tied to
her long plaits of hair were a number of blue beads
in the pathetic hope that if harm came near it would
fall on the beads and not on her. Naturally it had
proved ineffective in preventing disease. But that
she continued to believe in the efficacy of the charm
appeared when her small child came to visit her,
literally burdened down with charms which were
sewed on his clothes. There have even been frequent
cases of camels and donkeys wearing blue beads.

Amulets, too, are much used in the hope that they
will avert evil One old man complained bitterly
when he was put to bed in the hospital because a
perforated silver box which he carried with him had
been removed with his clothing. It contained a
miniature copy of the Koran as a protection against
disaster, and the patient was unable to rest until it
had been restored to him. This indicates, of course,
that to some the Koran itself is a fetish. A miniature
copy is placed on the head of a new-born infant. The
94th and iO5th chapters, if read at morning prayer,
will keep away toothache. The igth verse of the
22nd chapter is a cure for headache. Its recitation
on occasions of birth, death, or marriage is a cardinal
necessity.

Furthermore, an individual in need of advice may

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

take an omen from the Koran by opening it at random
and reading the seventh line, or by taking the ista-
kareh, which consists of an elaborate counting on a
Moslem rosary. This is taken, for example, in re-
gard to a visit to a foreign hospital; if the count is
good and the patient goes, an operation advised or
medicine ordered is favorably considered, but even
then, before these are agreed to, the omen must be
taken again. Many bottles of medicine have stood
unopened for weeks on the shelf, waiting for a good
omen.

Iranians divide illness into hot and cold, moist
and dry, in the same way that they divide medicines
and foods. A hot disease must have a cold diet, and
vice versa; this is accepted today.

A charm is thought to be of greater benefit than
reasonable care in the prevention of a disease, or
the correct medicine for its cure. There was an odd
belief that medicine was first given to make a patient
worse, then a second dose to effect a cure. This is
reminiscent of ancient Chinese medicine, as are the
jade charms which are so popular.

Talismans of metal or jade, engraved with mystical
astrological characters, are supposed to be super-
protection, since these characters are believed to have
a magical potency. They are worn by people of
every class, especially by women. The fact that they
create confidence and so give courage is effective,
for when the depression of fear is removed the heart
beats normally, the circulation and consequently the
tone of the nerves is improved.

One young girl who came under Dr. Funk's care

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 213

had been troubled by sore eyes. In an endeavor to
cure her, well-meaning friends made an incision in
her arm, inserted a blue bead and bound up the
arm. The inevitable sequel, of course, was an ab-
scess which was much more serious than the original
trouble with her eyes. It is customary to write a
charm or a prayer on paper and sew it to a child's
hat, or down the back of the child's coat, but one
small girl entered the hospital with a badly infected
wound in her flesh, because a paper prayer had been
inserted under the skin which had been clumsily
sewed up. Such a barbaric bit of surgery is supposed
to be a sure cure.

To cure fever one can buy a small paper with a
charm written on it, the writing to be washed off,
and the dirty water given to the patient to drink.
One woman was carried into the clinic with a badly
swollen and inflamed leg. She had cut it badly and
the wound did not heal. To keep the wound open
her friends had adopted the simple method of filling
it with dry peas.

The primitive methods of curing illness are in-
numerable. To cure the bite of a dog, some animal's
hair must be singed and applied where the skin is
broken. For a burn the ashes of a piece of blue
calico dyed with indigo may be applied, or the con-
tents of a bottle of ink; sometimes the tannic acid
in the locally manufactured ink is surprisingly effec-
tive.

A small boy brought reluctantly to the clinic had
a flesh wound on his leg to which had been applied
a mixture of pomegranate juice, egg and gunpowder,

214 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

wrapped in a dirty rag. Wounds are often treated
with the white o egg smeared on and covered with
leaves. The latter actually may have kept germs out
and protected the wound as collodion does.

Scarce water supply, no drainage, and no real
knowledge of the body and its needs, make the health
records an ugly testament, and records are kept only
where comparatively better conditions exist. There
can be no doubt that the mortality of children under
five years of age still rests at the appalling figure of
80 per cent. The reasons are many and all remov-
able. Record cards on file read: "Three living, five
dead; two living, four dead; five living, six dead;
one living, seven dead/' Rarely does the first column
have a larger number than the second.

The high death rate is attributable to the igno-
rance of immature and untrained mothers, lack of
proper care at the time of childbirth, to measles,
whooping cough, scarlet fever, smallpox, dysentery,
typhoid, and venereal disease. The adult death rate
is also pathetic, and surprising in that the health
records of those acclimated ought to be excellent in
a country which is as yet only slightly mechanized,
and where there are no mining, shipping, railway or
factory hazards, and therefore few deaths or injuries
by accident.

Most of the accidents which occur result from
carelessness in the use of firearms, from falling from
horses, roofs or trees, or from burns. The latter are
frequently caused by the fire which is placed under
what is called a kursi; this, properly used, is the most
economical method of heating ever devised. A low

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 215

open brazier filled with redfaot charcoal is placed
under a low table; this is surrounded by large
cushions and is covered by a quilt which extends to
the laps or shoulders of those who face the table.
The members of the family support their backs by
leaning against the cushions during the day and at
night; when their bodies are under the kursi cover,
the cushions remain in position and are used as pil-
lows. Beneath this kursi an entire poor family prac-
tically spend the winter. Children often roll or slide
under the quilt and are burned by the hot charcoal.

Indifference and endurance may be attributed in
part to Mohammed's teaching. Heat and cold,
hunger and thirst, pain, sickness and death are ac-
cepted as a necessary part of life, not as things to
fear, avoid, or overcome, but as facts to face and
accept with patient tolerance, even lightheartedly,
as the common lot of man.

Much illness is due to sandfly fever, sunstroke,
relapsing fever, and malaria; much also to Leish-
maniesis (Oriental boil), scabies and favus, typhus,
amoebic and other forms of dysentery. Half the
population has round worms, as the result of raw
food and water infection; tapeworms and taemia are
common; in the low land around Resht hookworms
reduce the vitality of thousands. These keep the
children thin, weak, and anemic; many die from lack
of nutrition. Smallpox, except in the central locali-
ties where vaccination is obligatory, has always been
considered a necessary illness for every child. Tu-
bercular bone degeneration, phthisis, whooping
cough, and dementia praecox cases are also abundant.

2 i6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Child marriages have been responsible for an untold
amount o suffering, often bringing lifelong misery
to women from the resulting complications.

Eye infections of every kind are widely prevalent.
Some of these are due to the constantly blowing dust,
desert sunglare, and to flies. In the case of women
these infections, as well as those of the skin, are ag-
gravated as well as caused by the wearing of dust-
infiltrated veils and chadars, and the lending of these
to other women. Abscesses and inturned eyelashes
are frequent. These, being obvious, cause the afflicted
to seek prompt relief, but blindness is frequent from
the more slowly developing diseases trachoma, glau-
coma and cataract, as well as from smallpox and
gonorrhea.

Neurasthenia among men, as well as women, is
marked. Both the monotony and the friction of the
harem method of life contributes to this. Men often
cry and make all manner of excuses to avoid opera-
tions. Women are pathetically indifferent to suffer-
ing, or exaggerate it greatly to attract and hold atten-
tion. It gives their lives a little passing importance.
Children are frightened and sullen, or very excit-
able, and are usually, when sick, greatly humored.

Carpet-weaving is now conducted hygienically, but
it has been responsible for ill health and deformity
among children. The labor of girls has been much
used in this work, as it is cheaper than that of men.
Dr. Edward Dodson, who worked for many years at
Kerman, wrote in 1920 of the weavers of that town:

"Starting at the ages of five, six, or seven years,
the children, boys and girls alike, work from sunrise

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 217

till sunset, week in and week out, with but a half day
on Friday for holiday. The work is carried on in
ill-ventilated hovels, warmed in the cold of winter
only by the heat of their bodies, and overheated in
summer by sheer want of air and space. Thus many
fall victims to a very crippling form of rickets, which
affects not only the bones of the arms and legs, but
those of the pelvis and the rest of the skeleton of the
body. One result is a gross form of knock-knee which
renders walking difficult or impossible, so that many
children have actually had to be carried by their
parents from and to their homes. Girls after their
marriage are thrown into the greatest danger as the
time of their confinement draws near, both mother
and child being faced with almost certain death due
to pelvic deformity. The native midwives, not fore-
seeing this risk, used to make no preparation for it,
and only gave up their futile efforts to deliver the
child after the mother was dead.

"In the course of one year the Kerman mission
hospital treated forty-seven cases of deformed carpet-
weavers, all of them expectant mothers. In twenty-
eight cases the women had been several days in
agony, and were brought into the hospital in a severe
state of exhaustion. In addition to these, nineteen
other girls were operated on for crippled limbs.
Others suffering from rickets, paralysis and other
deformities due to carpet weaving were treated as
out-patients."

As poorer people seldom bathe their entire bodies,
sweat accumulates, both in the torrid summer and,
as clothes are seldom changed, also during the freez-

2z8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Ing winter weather. Going to bed and getting up
are very easy matters when they Involve merely tak-
ing off or putting on the outer garment. Clothes
are changed when the hamman, or public bath, is
visited; then everything is put on fresh. But many,
having no clean clothes, do not go to the public baths
for months. Unfortunately, it is quite a usual thing
to go after acquiring an infectious disease. Some
of the germs may be destroyed but many are still
active, and thus the disease is transmitted. Igno-
rance makes illness an inescapable hazard.

At the hamman there Is conversation, comrade-
ship, and, for the higher classes, luxury in the form
of shampoo and massage. It Is customary for bathers
to dawdle in tanks of water that stand tepid and un-
changed all day. A hygienic bath in a tin tub Is a
foreign luxury, which requires much preparation.
Water for that is heated over a slow fire in a primi-
tive tile oven, and brought in buckets to be emptied
into the tub. Ordinarily this Is round and made of
sheets of tin salvaged from Standard Oil containers.
The tubs are so small the legs are cramped and the
back aches before the bath is half completed.

Carelessness about food leads to infection. Plums,
apricots, peaches, and figs are dried on the roof or on
the ground. They need constant turning and are
fingered and sampled by many dirty fingers. Fresh
fruit is seldom washed; dust and flies leave deposits
upon the fruit, which is rarely cooked.

An appreciable proportion of ill health is due to
opium smoking while eating, a long-existent, miser-
able habit. Even in the houses of the very poor

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 219

there are opium pipes which both men and women
use. Men smoke opium openly in the bazaars and
cafes. Poisoning from the drug soon takes its toll.

I recall seeing one young man so wizened and
shriveled that he resembled a monkey from constant
addiction to the opium habit. Any regular work
had long since become difficult, almost impossible
for him. He had no longer any kind of steady job
which would provide him with money, and he had
then sold his household possessions in order to pro-
cure the drug. Cases like this are infinitely pathetic
and much too common.

Along the roads I often saw men enjoying opium
as they sat in dreamy groups on a platform built
beside a river, or reclining under a shady tree. Some
chauffeurs still pause frequently on a journey to
smoke a pipe, which they consider restful, but the
effect of which upon their driving is to cause reck-
lessness or benumb their ability to act quickly.

There still exists a colossal prevalence of the great-
est social evil venereal disease. This is a menace to
the nation. In all countries personal morals are
lower in large cities, as there is greater opportunity
to escape public opinion and more temptation sur-
rounds young men. Village boys coming to the
cities for army training often acquire syphilis and
carry it back to many localities when their period o
training is over.

A pharmacist in a Teheran newspaper, perhaps
with some exaggeration, but with patriotic courage,
stated: "The prescriptions presented at my phar-
macy show that from 60 to 80 per cent of the medi-

220 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

cines given out are for syphilis and gonorrhea. ^ The
deadly result of these two powerful agents is the
destruction of the nation. From poor to rich, man
and woman, old and young, the majority are in-
fected/' This gives a devastating impression until
we remember that the statement applies only to the
sick of the population.

The quotation continues: "While the rich hurry
for treatment, the middle class, through lack of
money, delay; the third class do not go at all, but
empty-handed try to put up a plucky fight against
this formidable opponent, only to be beaten and
finally wiped out. When Teheran, the capital and
center of the nation, is burning in the fire of this
plague, woe to the condition of the provinces and
the other parts of the country where the inhabitants
have not the medical resources we have here. . . .
Those who know something about these dangerous
diseases know too how difficult is their treatment, and
how impossible with the means at our disposal. In
view of this not a day passes but that a number of
our ignorantly helpless youths are infected, and with-
out asking 'why' or * wherefore/ they consign them-
selves and a number of others to death. Who is
responsible for this? Has the population of this
country become so excessive that we must allow
them to go, troop after troop, to destruction?"

Many women are unhappy because, from early
excesses, their husbands become impotent at thirty-
five. It is said that when Shah Nasir-ed-Din sent a
minister to Bismarck to learn how he too might
become an able statesman, he was advised to devote

THE DOCTOR'S PART IN PROGRESS 221

himself to but one wife, and put the rest of his
energy into politics. Venereal disease and its obliter-
ation is still a vital problem the world over. But
in Iran it constitutes a threat to all the progress on
other social fronts. Clinics for treatment are being
established but will not be used until the popula-
tion recognize early symptoms or come to realize that
their neglect has far-reaching, evil consequences.

Treating a patient at home is hampered by a try-
ing custom which makes medical assistance difficult.
For example, the worse the patient becomes, the
more public will the room grow. Inquisitive rela-
tives and friends crowd in to sit around, drinking
tea, smoking, and talking incessantly. This social
sympathy uses up all the air in the room and cre-
ates a deafening noise. But if people did not do
this they would be thought unkind. If an illness is
likely to be fatal, the patient makes a will, his body
is turned around so that Mecca may be faced, rela-
tives crowd about, and a mullah comes to read pas-
sages from the Koran.

In many villages when death takes place everyone
gives way to deep grief; soon hired mourners arrive,
as well as a number of friends, especially women,
each of whom as she enters utters the conventional
death shriek. Moslems are not supposed to mourn
their dead, their lamentations at the time of death
being for the suffering and death of Hussein, the
grandson of Mohammed. The haste at the time of
death is emotionally shocking, but wise from the
standpoint of infection. The body is quickly taken
away and washed, either by the lower-class men or

222 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

women whose calling it is, or by relatives. Moham-
med urged his followers to make all speed in carrying
a dead man to his grave; because, if he is a true be-
liever, he will so much the sooner attain blessed rest
and happiness, and, if he is an infidel, the sooner he
is taken from the house, the better it is for the souls
of the other inmates; obviously this is a bit of ritual
hygiene.

The busman's holiday is popularly supposed to be
spent in taking a ride; and a doctor's holiday usually
ends in a clinic. With the unusual health problems
which Iran had to offer the physician, it is small
wonder that it was not long before I felt the call of
the clinic.

XV

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS

THE work of the clinics is so bound up with the
work of the missions in Iran that It is not easy
to separate them.

We in the United States are so accustomed to
national, state, and city health departments safe-
guarding us against infectious diseases, and to hos-
pitals for the care of all classes, that we do not realize
how basic in citizenship these are. For without good
health we could never carry forward the energetic
programs characteristic of this country.

What has long been commonplace to us is new in
Iran. The prenatal care of mothers, the control of
syphilis, the use of X-ray and diathermy are innova-
tions. All kinds of up-to-date laboratory work
routinely done in the English and American mis-
sionary hospitals has stimulated an interest in pathol-
ogy. This has caused the local physicians, who lack
facilities for this basic diagnostic work, to turn to
the missionary doctors for assistance. This they are
always glad to give.

I was anxious to see at close range, as perhaps only
a doctor can, the medical missionary work going for-
ward in Iran. The first well-trained physicians and
surgeons were missionaries, especially from England

223

224 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

and America, supported by thousands who wished,
through them, to send help to the helpless. Hospi-
tals, well-equipped for that time, were established a
hundred years ago by the British General Mission
Board in the key cities of southern Iran Isfahan,
Shiraz, Yezd, and Kerrnan; and by the American
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in four cities
in the northern half of Iran.

In 1835 the Congregational Church of America
began work in Iran at Urumia. This was soon taken
over by the Presbyterian Board, and the work was
extended to Teheran, Resht, Kermanshah, Hama-
dan, Tabriz, Daulatabad and Meshed. The greatly
needed work progressed rapidly. Scientifically, it
has kept pace with that in our own home hospitals.
All the physicians and surgeons have been graduates
of our best colleges, and have had their hospital
service under leading specialists. American nurses,
highly trained and experienced, have helped them to
develop the hospitals and clinics. Their work has
changed for thousands of patients the night of pain
into the day of efficiency.

As I walked through the wards of the American
Hospital in Teheran, my attention was attracted by
the large number of extremely ill patients men and
women who in Europe or the Americas would never
have waited to consult a doctor until their diseases
had advanced to such a shocking, almost hopeless
condition. I learned that these patients had tried
all sorts of remedies prescribed by neighbors before
they had taken what seemed to them a greater risk-
advice from a stranger. They had, of course, lost

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 225

much time and strength by these delays, and they
had taken bitter, often nauseous concoctions which,
they admitted, they had had great difficulty in swal-
lowing. They had concluded to wait to see if these
would effect a cure before going three or four days'
journey to receive further medication.

Some of these suffering creatures had been brought
to the hospital in broken two-wheel carts, in wheel-
barrows, on jolting camels or on slow-moving don-
keysa hazardous adventure in their condition. The
most pitiful of all were those so poor they had to be
carried many miles on the backs of relatives, who
tottered under their weight, stumbling and some-
times falling while treading the road of mercy.

One morning I was standing on the road just out-
side the great entrance gate to the hospital grounds.
In half an hour a surgical clinic for ambulant pa-
tients would begin. Many had already passed
through the gate; others were coming in large num-
bers, in all sorts of vehicles. Some were hobbling
along, others had patches over their eyes, arms in
slings, or were on crutches. The men were fre-
quently alone, but the women were always accom-
panied by several members of their families. Pres-
ently, a crude, solid-wheeled, unlubricated ox cart
groaned its way to the gate. The "sick one" had
come a three days' journey, his old father beside
him, to the Meriz Khana, House of the Sick. "Praise
be to Allah,'* he fervently said to the doctor. "Many
lives you have saved for people in our village. They
showed us the road and we came."

Mohammedan, Jew, and Christian; Kurds, Rus-

2$>6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

sians, and Afghans people of all grades and ages
flocked to the clinic; many were ragged and starv-
ing, as well as sick.

Dr. Hugh S. Gumming, then Surgeon General of
the United States Public Health Service, thought-
fully wrote letters to our colleagues in each of the
Mohammedan countries included in my itinerary.
They officially cooperate with the United States in
the prevention of disease transmission. General
Gumming asked them to show me their government
hospitals and to tell me of international health prob-
lems. If the observer has a background of experi-
ence it is easier to understand the daily difficulties
which are ably met, as well as the human and scien-
tific success of which doctors seldom speak.

I also had the privilege of working with Dr.
MacDowell in his clinic for women and children.
One morning as I worked with him, I marveled that
he could understand the replies of the women, who
muffled their voices by holding their chadars over
their faces. If they needed to show an eruption, a
burn, or a bruise on their arms or necks, they freed
their hands by holding their chadars with their
teeth. These poor women probably had not washed
their outside garments for a month at least. The
chadars were infiltrated with dust from the streets,
from being used as dusters, or from shooing away
flies; they were also soiled by dandruff and face pow-
der. On one chadar I noticed a patch of gray ashes;
these, the woman explained, came when she was
"blowing the coals to make the fire burn."

Several poor women from villages had scars on

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 227

their breasts. I was told that striking a woman where
it would hurt most used to be the brutal practice
of high-tempered husbands. Now the police and
neighbors dare to interfere with these beatings and,
fortunately, they are no longer customary.

^When well, many upper-class women are capri-
cious, but when it comes to physical pain they are
generally courageous. One morning a woman who
was waiting for the removal of a large ovarian tumor,
anxious to be rid of it, kept saying, "Let's go, let's
go."

While men are used to being pampered and are
frequently weak in enduring pain, the women have
learned resignation to their fate, whatever it may be.

In the seemingly never-ending succession of inter-
esting cases in the American missionary hospital in
Tabriz all types were present. Among them, a man
who had been sick for three years and who was para-
lyzed on the right side of his face, came in wearing
heavy fancy knit socks, the remnants of a peasant
costume, and a rakish dingy derby. His legs were
much swollen. On examination, it was found that
he had a pathological condition of both his kidneys
and his liver. He said that he had come to the
hospital for mercy as he had no friends to take care
of him and no hope.

He had been told by a doctor who lived not too far
from his village for him to be reached by a day's
slow interrupted walk, to eat watermelon, yogert,
a curdled milk preparation, and to drink much
water, but he had not found this enough to keep up
his strength. He had thought he could make money

22 8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

begging, as it is part of the Mohammedan's duty,
if he hopes to reach heaven, to give something to
every beggar who solicits him; but he had been too
sick to beg and too sick to use the money to buy food.

The idea of organized charities is new in Iran and
there was no organization in Tabriz to which to
send this man. The hospital was filled with acute
cases, so he represented a frequent problem. The
Americans kept him for a week and endeavored to
get in touch with some relation. On the fourth day
a girl came in who said she was his daughter. She
assumed a dolorous expression, but she had bobby
pins in her hair, recently cut short, wore men's shoes,
white knit gloves, and a black piece of cloth draped
far back on her head. Her face was fairly intelligent.

She said that she wished she could take care of
her father, but that she was sick herself, and on
examination it was found that she really had a seri-
ous pelvic condition, long neglected, which rendered
her a semi-invalid. Her neighbors had been kind,
she told us, but they were all poor and she did not
think they could help her father any further. She
had five children to look after, and her husband was
very exacting.

The next patient, a woman thirty-five years of
age, complained of pain over the gall bladder and
stomach. She was very reticent about giving any
personal history. Her oldest daughter, twenty years
old, accompanied her and brought along her three
children. One child was suffering from worms and
a great deal of itching. In a sympathetic low tone,
Dr. Elles talked with these patients and admitted the

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 229

mother to the hospital for an obviously necessary
operation on her gall bladder, as the stones could
easily be felt through her thin abdominal wall.

Another case was brought in by a young woman
who said that her companion was her husband's
grandfather's wife. Her aged eyes were much in-
flamed. Yes, she had been to the clinic before and
had received an eyewash which she had used for two
days; it had helped her so she had left it off for
two months. The clinic was interrupted by the
doctor being called to deliver a patient. As I had
been helping him, he asked me to take it over while
he was away.

The next patient to come out of the crowded
room, where many women were waiting, was a jaunty
young houri. Her hair was dyed; her eyebrows
plucked. She wore bracelets, earrings, and a very
flashy cheap necklace. She consumed an hour of my
time, which seemed to me unnecessary in view of the
number waiting, and it was not too long to make
a complete examination and to do laboratory work
to see whether the physical statements she made
against her husband were true. I thought the fee
which she paid to the clinic of 24 cents was the most
moderate professional recompense for all the nurse
and I had done for her, as she could obviously afford
to be flashily dressed.

The clinic's charge for those who can afford it is
designed merely to meet the wholesale rate of medi-
cines prescribed. The nurse was wonderfully pa-
tient and very much interested to learn all that she
could. She had a clear understanding of new ideas,

230 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

so Dr. Elks asked me to have a class for the nurses
at the end of the clinic, then bedside Instruction,
followed by a summary in his living-room.

I enjoyed this, because one of the great needs of
Iran is more and more scientifically trained nurses.
The government realizes this, and Miss Nicholson,
formerly the head nurse in the Resht American
Missionary Hospital, has been requested to go to
Meshed near the Afghanistan border and establish
a government training school for nurses there.

The next clinic patient was a pronounced case of
advanced appendicitis, in addition to which she had
malaria. Her husband seemed very much con-
cerned. He made a favorable impression upon me
as he helped to give the history of her case. The
toxemia, however, made her irritable and obviously
she was naturally high-tempered as, when he said,
"She feels the heat very much/* she snapped out,
"The fever is not yours, what do you know about
it!"

So the morning went on with case after case.
There was much I found sympathetic in the Iranian
women, most of whom were gentle and all of whom
were modest. When Dr. Elles returned from the
nearby village to which he had been called in such
haste, I could see that he had had a difficult time.
He told me that the baby's arm and abdomen were
protruding when he arrived, that he had delivered
the baby by internal version, grasping the feet to
rotate the infant. Cases like this do not happen in
the United States, because with the onset of birth
pains, doctors are called. In Iran the many

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 331

tragic needs can not be met for many years, for,
although the present Shah Is anxious to have hospi-
tals and doctors on the "Western" model, the people,
used to suffering and neglect, often allow their ill-
nesses to proceed to a climax before asking for help,
and it Is unreasonable to suppose that the social
medical service, which It has taken a hundred years
to develop In Europe and the Americas, can reach
the same stage in Iran in less than twenty years.

The patients who remain in the hospital are al-
ways accompanied by one or more members of their
families. A relative or servant stays with them in
order to make them comfortable in their own way.
They bring from their homes several rugs, a samo-
var, and a few simple cooking utensils, including a
small pair of tongs to place the bits of charcoal in the
mangaL This small brass brazier is easily moved
from place to place and requires very little fuel;
charcoal is blown on or fanned to a glow or smoulder
with sufficient heat to cook their food, which often
consists of rice, lentils, peas, and herbs. The kalyon,
or water-tobacco pipe, which is smoked by women
as well as men, does much to make a room cozy.
The doctors cannot allow the persistent presence of
the patients' families in the wards, for the floor would
become so crowded the nurses would be unable to do
their work, but in the private rooms the wishes of
the patient prevail.

Incidentally, there is one good resulting from the
presence of the members of the family; it is educa-
tional for them to observe and sometimes lend a hand
in the care given to the sick; to see the orderliness,

232 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

cleanliness, and efficient work of the nurses. Rela-
tives are usually amazed by the pre-delivery and the
after care which is routinely given to obstetrical
cases. At first they think it very unnecessary, but
the rapid recovery of the mother, the baby's free-
dom from eye infection, and the general good health
of the patients are so convincing, that the next pteg-
nancy in the family leads them to make early reser-
vation in the hospital.

In the Meshed hospital Dr. Rolla E. Hoffman
encountered some bizarre cases. AJI Iranian citizen
was forced to leave Russia, where he had lived for
many years, when the Russians decided to expel all
foreigners whom they could not bring into line with
the new reforms. Since he was not allowed to bring
any gold with him, this man simply swallowed the
gold pieces he had. He arrived at the Meshed hos-
pital, complaining that his wife and two children
were starving, while his own stomach was loaded with
useless gold. Since attempts to break up the mass
of coins, clearly shown by the fluoroscope, failed,
Dr. Cochran operated and removed the gold, 7 ten-
ruble and 1 1 five-ruble pieces. The patient made a
good recovery. The police of Meshed took charge
of the gold, as it is illegal for anyone to have it in
his possession; but decided that since the poor chap
had not tried to conceal it, he was entitled to its
value, so it was sold and the value in current money,
about $150, was given to him.

Dr. Hoffman said that he frequently saw cases
of longstanding disease which had progressed un-
checked by surgical or other care. One woman en-

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS

tered the Meshed hospital with an ovarian cyst; she
weighed 210 pounds on admission and only about
90 pounds on dismissal. It was evident that the
tumor weighed more than the patient.

One woman presented herself with a fibrous tumor
mass hanging from the back of her head to the level
o her waistline. She stated that it had begun fol-
lowing an attack by her husband who had struck
her on the back of the head with a flatiron some ten
years before. They did the removal with some
trepidation, and although she had rather severe
shock following the operation, she recovered satis-
factorily.

A child was brought to Dr. Hoffman with the
complaint that it could not use its arms or legs fol-
lowing an attack of smallpox about a month before.
The elbows and knees were somewhat swollen and
presented sinuses. Out of each elbow and knee Dr.
Hoffman pulled a piece of sequestrated bone, in the
consulting room, without any anesthesia and with
practically no pain to the child. The pieces of bone
were all just ready to be extruded. This is one of
the horrible complications of smallpox.

In Herat, Afghanistan, a ten-year-old girl was
brought to Dr. Hoffman with her unbroken, bare,
and blackened humerus projecting from the very
short stump of her right arm. Her father stated
that she had suffered what was evidently a simple
fracture of the forearm about two months before.
It had been treated by a local bonesetter who had
bandaged the arm too tightly. It had swollen and
suppurated, and finally the whole arm had just

234 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

fallen off! All acute reaction had subsided, and
nothing remained to be done but remove the use-
less humerus and dress the stump. Think what it
meant to this girl to be without a doctor!

Very large families are usual and not expensive,
for the cost of bearing and maintaining a child is
one-tenth of what it is in Europe. Usually, how-
ever, many of the babies die in their first year, or
before they are five years old. One woman gave a
history of having been married at seven, reaching
puberty at nine, and in a year the first child was
born which soon died. In all she had borne fifteen
children; only two grew up. It had been "Allah's
will." She expressed no regret.

Dr. Asgnarzadeh, a Russian woman married to an
Iranian, ably assists Dr. MacDowell three mornings
a week, giving volunteer service in the clinic and
dispensary for women and children. She averages
in examination, advice, and treatment 1214 individ-
uals a year, many of whom come a number of times.
In order to supplement her directions to the mothers,
she prepared and had printed simple instructions
regarding the care of babies, with a view to prevent-
ing the more common ailments. Expectant mothers
come to her for examination. This and Dr. Mac-
Doweirs skill have led to such good results that hos-
pital obstetrical work is increasing 50 per cent each
year. This is important, for midwives with little or
no training have been in the past one of the causes
of the high infant mortality rate. Many of the most
prominent Iranians bring their wives to the hospi-
tal, and the amount they pay for skilful care helps

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 235

to defray some of the expenses of the ever-Increasing
clinic work for the poor.

A woman who had borne a child each year for
twelve years said to me listlessly, "I am weary of
bearing children, but I want my husband to know
that I can/' adding, "It doesn't matter whether they
live or not." This sounded oversexed, but my Rus-
sian colleague explained that it really expressed pa-
tience and a sense of insecurity. When women who
were little more than children were burdened with
child bearing, their emotions were undeveloped and,
fortunately, not deep; as they grew older there was
nothing new or idealistic in motherhood. How
could this woman's affections be other than indif-
ferent and her sentimental reactions dulled? This,
however, prevented deep sorrow when infant after
infant died. If the most profound human relations
are mechanized, what real happiness can men and
women find in a home and in children who lack the
developing asset of parental love and intelligent care?

The health and dignity of the mother, as a matter
of primary importance in the family, and her eugenic
responsibilities are wholly new ideas. Neither the
long months of her pregnancies nor the draining of
her strength in nursing children who are often one,
two, and three years old, has ever received any con-
sideration. Biology as a basic science opens a new
world of hope and fulfilment.

American and English women physicians and sur-
geons have also rendered much appreciated service.
In the mission hospital Dr. Emma Miller in Urumia
was in charge of the first building in Iran ever de-

236 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

signed as a hospital for women. Dr. Mary^ Smith
conducted the large hospital in Teheran during the
World War. Dr. Robert Speer wrote to me that
when the Shah made his notable visit to the Central
Mission Hospital in Teheran, he asked particularly
that the lady doctor should be pointed out to him,
exclaiming, "Is it possible for a woman to have
enough knowledge to become a doctor?" Upon be-
ing told that the slender, blue-eyed person, Dr.
Mary J. Smith, was she, he held out his hand, say-
ing, "Feel my pulse and tell me the state of my
health."

It happened that in 1906 the Iranian wife of the
Prime Minister urged him to stipulate, when he was
signing the permit of the American Missionary Hos-
pital in Teheran, that no women should be allowed.
After she herself was ill and taken care of there, she
gave a sum of money for the erection of a woman's
ward. This gift was duplicated by Mrs. McCormick
of Chicago, so the woman's ward in Teheran came
into being. It was maintained as a distinct unit of
the medical work in Teheran until ill health com-
pelled Dr. Smith to resign, when the women's work
became a part of the general work of the hospital.

Dr. Adelaide Kibbe in Meshed is today one of the
women doctors who are doing splendid work in
Iran. Each of these women has done outstanding
medical and surgical work, and the English and
American registered nurses who work under the
missions have not only inaugurated training schools,
but have given a fine impetus, together with the
women doctors, to the progress of Iranian women

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 237

In their newly developed plans of service to human-
ity, whereas, in the past their narrow religious tenets
had made services outside their own families un-
thinkable.

Not many years ago, when a man doctor called to
attend a Moslem lady, he usually did not see her. He
looked at her tongue as she extended it through a
hole in a curtain, or felt her pulse through an open-
ing slightly larger. Now in the cities women, accom-
panied by their husbands or some other member of
their family, go to men for consultation and examina-
tion. For years the Government Hospital for Women
in Teheran had a struggle to render service. At-
tendance was negligible; now it flourishes. It has
forty beds and is staffed by Iranians.

The first of the increasing numbers of Iranian
physicians were trained by missionary physicians,
surgeons, and pharmacists. Those blazed the trail
and opened the way for the younger doctors whom
they now welcome on their return to Iran. Each
year some have been educated abroad, and large
numbers will, no doubt, graduate through the com-
ing years from the Medical College of Teheran.
Armenian and Iranian assistants are being trained.

Education as it advances will automatically im-
prove health conditions, for only as people are able
to read the articles on hygiene in their own publica-
tions will they pay marked attention to the general
advice of medical authorities. Meanwhile, the gov-
ernment is allocating large sums in its budget to
fight malaria, provide sanitary organization against
cholera, and limit other infectious diseases.

2*8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

"iJ

Dr. MacDowell, a member of the Official Licens-
ing Board for all physicians applying to practice in
Iran, and Dr. Blair express their sense of fellowship
with the scientifically trained Iranians, by having
joint medical meetings with them for the examina-
tion and discussion of especially interesting cases.
This is valuable cooperation and promotes the edu-
cated public opinion necessary to institute and main-
tain improved sanitation throughout the country.
In 1934-5 Dr. Blair helped the University of Teheran
establish its new medical school.

An outstanding need was modern instruction in
anatomy, physiology, pathology, and bacteriology.
The first step in the practical teaching of these fun-
damental sciences was to institute human cadaver
dissection in the teaching of anatomy. Whether
this was practiced in ancient times, for instance in
the famous Persian Medical School at Jundi Shapur,
in the early Christian centuries, Dr. Blair said he had
not been able to verify, either in history or through
tradition. In any event Mohammedanism has effec-
tively prevented it for the past thirteen centuries.

The interest in medicine among the majority of
students is lively and determined. Many now prac-
ticing are able physicians; Moslem and Armenian
nurses are being trained and the Minister of Health
is cognizant of many needs.

On account of the shortage of properly qualified
doctors, the government nine years ago created a
lower-class qualification, Tabib Majas, which was
given for an examination passed by a man who had
completed a course in nursing, anesthetics, dispens-

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS

ing and clinical xvork, and who had had experience;
but it was found that these men when not under
supervision were not careful regarding asepsis and
did not sterilize their instruments or keep their
offices in a sanitary condition. Much infection re-
sulted, and it was concluded that one-fourth a doctor
is no doctor.

One public-spirited and well-qualified Irani physi-
cian told me he thought the proper equipment in
hospitals could be supplied only by the government,
because the people are entirely unused to contribut-
ing to charity. There is no such thing as systematic
philanthropy, even in the subscription of small sums
to alleviate obvious suffering. Each family con-
siders its full duty done when it helps its own. Occa-
sionally a rich man will, in work of his own planning,
be very generous, and no doubt they will eventually
accept the responsibility of citizens in caring for the
afflicted.

In the last few years the government has inaugu-
rated health projects, hospitalization, and the up-to-
date education of a greater number of doctors. Hos-
pitals are being opened in all the larger towns, and
qualified doctors will in time run them with assistant
staffs. During the last few years French doctors at
the head of the Government Health Department and
the Pasteur Institute have been replaced by Irani.
State examinations have been instituted in order that
only qualified, well-trained doctors and those possess-
ing state licenses can practice medicine. This will
hasten the elimination of magical voodooisin, medi-
cal numerology, astrology, omens, necromancy, and

240 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

all the other fantastic and unreliable arts of
healing.

The education of Iranian doctors is progressing
and will overcome the abysmal ignorance in which
the uneducated people have lived for centuries.
They will greatly assist the task that the Minister
of Education and his co-workers have undertaken
to give scientific information to the people at large,
and so lead them to adopt modern medical methods
on a national scale.

Something has been accomplished toward public
health; more is planned, and cannot be too quickly
done, for these things are so basic that delay is dan-
gerous. The installation in all cities and towns of a
sewerage system, through adequate pipes, is so ur-
gent it should be taken up at once; also this would
save much expense while the engineering, grading,
and widening of roads is in progress.

At present, in many places, sanitation is at a
minimum. In many towns a privy is dug and, when
full, covered over and another dug, regardless of the
proximity of wells. Open sewers run above the
ground; they are indeed the wide gutters of the
streets; anything and everything is thrown in.
Adults and children urinate into them, and, if some-
one needs a cup of water to drink, he or she simply
scoops it out of this same gutter. Current public
opinion affirms that nothing can ever be wrong with
running water, especially if open to the sun. There
is no objection to women washing their clothes in
the same water that tea is to be made of, or vege-
tables washed in. They also contend that the con-

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 241

tents of a receptacle holding more than fifteen gal-
lons of water cannot be impure, and resent the idea
that the tanks used for ablutions and for drinking
water in front of their shrines are possible dissemi-
nators of disease.

The water supply of the country is from a pure
source, the snow-capped, uninhabited mountains.
But it is brought down to the towns in a primitive
manner and continually infected en route with
typhoid, which is ever-present. Only those survive
who develop immunity. The man who first brought
water from the mountains was considered a saint.
Perhaps that is why his method is still employed
in the use of a series of connecting wells called
caunauts.

Except in the homes of the wealthy, the diplo-
mats, and other foreigners, there is practically no
plumbing; a fact which makes dysentery and other
colonic diseases inevitable. The Shah's health is
protected by his having water piped direct from the
crystalline snows of the Mazanderan Mountains to
his country and city homes, and to those of mem-
bers of his cabinet.

As a protection it is customary to wash all vege-
tables and fruit first in chlorinated water, or with
permanganate solution, followed by freshly boiled
water, but even then servants may be careless about
their routine and their hands, so it is safe only to
eat cooked food, or hard-shelled things like coconuts
and eggs. Milk is scarce, but the dried milk prepara-
tions are just as nutritious.

Now Teheran is divided into four districts; each

24 2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

has a doctor who inspects the hotels, cafes, and
restaurants; meats, vegetables, ice boxes, and bak-
eries. He warns against fly-borne diseases, and
stresses the importance of healthy workers and clean
kitchens, shops and streets. A determined health
program is being instituted. Goats and sheep are no
longer permitted to wander through the city streets
as they formerly did, or to huddle together at night
in courtyards.

Street sweepers in cities have been organized and
authorized to prevent the poor from using the gut-
ters as kitchen sinks, bathrooms, lavatories, and
laundries. For the first offense they are warned;
for the second they must give up articles they have
been washing; third offense means imprisonment;
fourth, both prison and fine. The result is that the
main streets are clean during the day, and rapidly
the dirty, narrow alleys are being eliminated.

Free dispensaries have been opened and licensed
Irani practitioners are beginning to visit the outly-
ing villages. "The Red Lion and Sun/' a philan-
thropic society, has established nurseries, and is do-
ing other auxiliary hospital work, as well as main-
taining a few homes for the aged poor.

People are vaccinated against smallpox; for chil-
dren it is now compulsory, and every school child
must produce a sejjel, the new official registration
certificate; also certificates to show that he or she
has been vaccinated twice. Typhoid cases are re-
ported, cisterns covered, and goldfish or minnows
put in garden pools to eat the mosquito larvae.
Children with eye diseases are not permitted to at-

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 243

tend school; habit and ignorance are gradually be-
ing overcome.

In southwest Iran the sanitary and medical ser-
vices of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company have had a
beneficial influence. Workers in the fields are well-
housed and their health safeguarded. The petro-
leum fields are in one of the most blisteringly hot,
ill-drained, and malaria-infested districts of Iran,
where only the most efficient health organization and
control can keep any sort of permanent list of em-
ployees. From this center practical knowledge of
the causes and the prevention of cholera, malaria,
typhoid, and other diseases has spread to a wide area.

Throughout the country, a general sense of the
value of public health is increasing. This will lead
eventually to an awakening conscience about the
rights and the protection of others, as well as of one-
self, as a necessity in modern community living.
This is a wide enterprise, for it means that intelli-
gence concerning health must permeate the homes,
and not be thought of merely as something to be
gained at a hospital.

In view of the sterility of miles of unirrigated
deserts and the consequent scarcity of food, the in-
fant death rate of eighty out of every hundred born
may not have been serious in the past, when many
men had by each of their four or more wives a baby
every year; but now that monogamy is being estab-
lished, children will be fewer and more precious.

The health influence of women is a new move-
ment; interest is awakened in the impetus and un-
tiring assistance which women have given in every

2 4 4 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

country to health measures. As a result, with in-
creasing knowledge of hygiene and sanitation, their
demands will probably be stronger than those of
their husbands, for their anxiety will be associated
there, as it is here, with a sense of responsibility con-
cerning the well-being of their husbands and their
children. Women doctors have led the way in edu-
cation regarding the health of the family. If it had
not been for the active support of women's clubs
and other groups in the United States, legal measures
to safeguard public health would have been far
slower in materializing. It is the mother's instinct
to avert the menace of diseases by preventing their
occurrence. Already, in Iran, welfare centers and
maternity clinics, started by the missionaries, are
being extended.

Many vital issues will be ably met by the adoption
of thorough public health measures. When women
fully realize the importance of these, they will serve
on committees and commissions of public welfare,
as they do in Western countries, and the standard
of living will be improved and assured. In the past
they have unfortunately been unconscious of health
needs, and, as a matter of fact, the fathers of Iran
have not known these things either.

As the mothers become better informed, and
monogamy gives them a chance to lead balanced,
interesting, and energetic lives, they will have a
deeper understanding of healthful home-making.
When they no longer have a host of needless fears
about "evil eye," demons, and other superstitions
related to illness, their children will be stronger,

MODERN MEDICINE AND THE CLINICS 245

more intelligent, and will have a heredity and an
early home environment which will work for their
benefit instead of, as often in the past, for their
harm. Parents pass their health, education, and
behavior on to their children. There will gradu-
ally develop new orientation in responsibility and
forethought.

Avandeh Ye Iran (Future of Iran), a feminist
newspaper, approved by the Shah, has for its page-
head design a stirring picture of a woman bearing
the banner of Iran, moving from the shadowed ruins
of Persepolis into a radiant future in which elec-
tricity, railways, and factories have a part. Artists
may exclaim, "How terrible!" But along with rail-
ways and factories will come wholesome baby foods,
proper nursing bottles, plumbing, and bathing facili-
ties, disinfectants, healthful clothing, and all the rest
of the modern hygienic materials by which Iran may
turn from the road of doom and keep going upward
to new health and happiness.

XVI
THE MISSIONS

IT is due to the missionaries, more than to any
other factor, that the groundwork for modern
living has been laid in Iran, communicating with in-
finite patience the ways of the Western world to the
people of the East. This groundwork, however,
filled with valuable seed, would not have produced
so early or so large a harvest, had it not been that His
Majesty, Shah Riza Pahlavi, is a most progressive-
minded man and has utilized every force for the
advancement of his people. He has appreciated
the educational and medical work which has been
going on for one hundred years, and in ten, through
his influence, finds its flowering.

During many years the popularity of mission hos-
pitals has indicated that patients of all classes have
appreciated the value of their work. It is the "Gospel
in Action/' and the many thousands of people who
support this mission, as well as those helped by it,
realize that the doctors' skill and service are not
given to make money, but out of love and compas-
sion. This has given Iranians increasing respect for
Christianity and for Westerners. Day after day I
marveled at the variety in work and the skill of
doctors so far from clinical and consultation oppor-

246

THE MISSIONS 247

tunities, who, with no thought of recreation or
change, were working regularly ten hours a day and
were often called on at night as well.

If anyone has ever doubted the value of mission-
aries, a visit to Iran would clear away all misgivings
in that line.

The missionary doctors run endless risks in visit-
ing contagiously diseased people in their hovels at
all times of the day and night, and have meager pro-
tection in handling them in the hospitals. To them
it is all in the day's work. The good they do is
incalculable. Those who represent America in Iran
in works of mercy would stand high in any coun-
try. For sheer ability in scientific work and in con-
sistent Christian living, the men and women work-
ing in hospitals all across northern Iran cannot be
surpassed. Their hundred years of work have borne
amazing fruit in creating understanding of the mean-
ing of health of mind, of body, and of soul.

Outstanding American, British, and European
physicians and surgeons, with abundant expert as-
sistance, think they are as busy as it is possible to be.
If that is the case, the medical missionaries are super-
human. These doctors, in addition to meeting the
responsibilities of administration and daily care of
over two hundred in-patients and .clinical cases in
every field, have, with patience and final success,
trained native assistants. Expert quickness of mo-
tion, exactitude of record, cleanliness, punctuality,
equal attention to all according to the illness instead
of the rank, have been a new concept of service to
the Oriental, but speedily they have learned methods

248 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

of procedure, the handling of instruments, chemical

analysis, and X-ray machinery.

So much beneficent work has been done that an
influence has spread which has been to a great extent
responsible for the swift new progress in other lines
as well as in health, both through teaching and by
the examples of living. The doctors work with
endurance and amiability-from six to eight opera-
tions in one day is considered ordinary routine.

Much work is being done for lepers both by the
American Mission to Lepers and by the British
Empire Leprosy Relief Association. A village for
them has been established near Meshed, and the
Shrine of the Imam there provides out of its large
endowment some fuel, kerosene, and soap, besides a
bread ration of a pound and a half daily per adult,
and eighteen cents per month for the lepers to pur-
chase extras!

Dr. H. A. Lichtwardt, of Hamadan, an American
Missionary, wrote: "Pleading hands are being held
out to us; not only the ulcerating, gnarled, fingerless
stumps of the leper, but the skinny hands of little
children dying of starvation and ignorance; the cal-
loused, worn hands of humble peasants and earnest
workingmen, who, laid low by preventable disease,
are unable to provide for their families; the thin,
anemic hands of weary women, prematurely aged by
youthful marriage and annual childbearing; the yel-
low, trembling hands of unfortunate men and
women whose lives are being wrecked by the daily
use of opium all these humbly plead to us for that

THE MISSIONS 249

aid and assistance which until now they could not
receive."

There are many anemic and emaciated children
and adults on the streets. The ill receive scant care
at home because, as yet, few women know anything
about home nursing. The sick may be brought
four or five days' journey to the hospital in a basket
on the back of a donkey, or lying on a board in an
open, rickety automobile of doubtful date. Many
pilgrims traveling to Meshed from all over Iran and
Afghanistan, Arabia, India and Russian Turkestan,
arrive there sick.

The record of seven months in the mission hospi-
tal was 18,000 patients in the city and many more
from outside it. Two hundred and fifty-five pa-
tients to be seen in one day not only means exhaus-
tion to the doctor, but disappointment in his not
always being able to give scientific attention to in-
dividuals in proportion to the doctor's ability. Obvi-
ously, therefore, the mission doctors rejoice not only
in the number of Iranian doctors but also in the
nurses they are training, who will eventually carry
part or all of the load.

"Civilized living," as the Irani now call Western
ways, will require more doctors than the country
can educate for many years to come; for public
health services and education are urgently neces-
sary to lift the health and resulting potential energy,
not only in villages and towns, but everywhere, from
the passivity of medieval inactivity to the demands of
a resourceful, progressive citizenry.

2 5 o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

The missionary doctors have rendered such ser-
vice to all classes. This has not only removed many
old barriers, but has also established confidence,
which is the basis of the scientific use of all the dis-
coveries in modern medicine, for it is this that makes
them humanly valuable; the peasant now accepts the
vaccine and other gifts of the horse, the guinea pig,
and the rabbit, made available through human in-
telligence, instead of a sheep's eye or a blue bead to
restore health.

Eventually it is hoped there will be an adequate
number of doctors ready and able to carry unassisted
the medical burdens of the sick poor. Now the few
who are in the field value greatly the opportunity to
consult with medical missionaries. It would be a
great folly, a sin against their own people, if medical
mission work were soon discontinued. Cooperation
is what brings the best results.

Foreign medical service has reached so far that
now in every village a Westerner is thought to be a
doctor. As soon as a farangi arrives, a swarm of
people gather about, begging for medicine and ad-
vice. Often it is a week's journey to a mission hos-
pital in a town. Those who live in the few villages
which as yet can boast of a native doctor are often
too poor to consult the available physician and
therefore beseech free counsel.

One day when, miles from any town, we stopped
at the road-guard station for passport examination,
a man asked my driver, "Will the doctor see a soldier
who is lying crippled from a fall he had half an hour
ago?" I was amazed that they should have known

THE MISSIONS 251

that I was a doctor. My vanity vanished when I
discovered that it was customary for every foreigner
to be considered a doctor especially a foreign
woman, since most of the latter outside the capital
are connected with the missions.

I examined the man, a tall, sturdy fellow, and
found that he had dislocated his hip. He was in
great pain and decidedly nervous. It seemed impos-
sible for him to relax sufficiently for me to reduce
the dislocation. In the crowd around us was a little
boy, I told him as I patted him lightly on the back
that I knew a fine game which I wanted to teach him.
With the confidence of childhood, he lay down and
with my assistance moved his legs as I directed. He
enjoyed the importance of his suddenly gained so-
cial position. When I explained to the suffering
soldier that he would be hurt little more than the
child had been, and that I needed his relaxation and
assistance in order to manipulate his leg, he lost his
apprehension and cooperated. Soon he was on his
feet, comfortable and thankful.

One of the other guards, jealous of the attention
paid to his colleagues, told me that he had trouble
with his nose and throat. As the roads were ex-
tremely dusty, I traveled with an antiseptic spray. I
showed the soldier how to give himself a nasal irri-
gation. He was so charmed by it that all the sol-
diers wanted to try it. Each of them tried desper-
ately to think of something that either he, or a rela-
tive, needed to have corrected. Like all humans, a
certain number suffer no doubt from imaginary ills;
but more often in Iran there are years of helpless

25 2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

suffering and serious emergencies when no medical
aid is available.

"One thing which impresses me in American hos-
pitals at home/' wrote Dr. Rolla E. Hoffman, of the
Meshed Mission Hospital, "is the wastefulness. We
are forced to economize, for our patients are poor, on
the whole. I long ago learned to tie knots with a
hemostat, thus wasting a minimum o the suture ma-
terial, for there is little or no end to throw away,
and one can tie knots as fast in this way as by using
his fingers; also it is less tiring. Hence we are usu-
ally able to complete a simple laparotomy with the
use of only one tube of catgut, and rarely use more
than two tubes for a hysterectomy.

"Recently we have been using silk, which is better
for many operations, and is much cheaper. Economy
dictates our use of many things; for example, spinal
anesthesia instead of ethylene or cyclopropane, which
are prohibitive in cost; and even chloroform instead
of ether, much of which often evaporates en route.
Ordinarily we operate with only one assistant, using
two only for such operations as thyroidectomy and
bone-grafting; and unless we have a nursing school
and want to teach the nurses technic, we do not usu-
ally have a sterile nurse.

"Medical missionaries/' Dr, Hoffman goes on,
"have been accused (e.g., Rethinking Missions) of
giving too much attention to major surgery; but it
should be remembered that medical missions are
essentially a pioneering project, designed to engen-
der confidence in modern medicine in the minds of
ignorant and prejudiced populations who are hostile

THE MISSIONS 253

to it and to its teachings. Such people have no ears
for health propaganda or preventive medicine, and
even the most efficient medical treatment is less ef-
fective than surgery, because they argue that 'Of
course, since God intended the patient to get over his
fever, he got well and would have done so in any
case, with or without medicine/

"But a tumor removed, blind eye made to see,
stone taken out, deformity corrected, are not subject
to the same withering reasoning; something visible
has been done that others dare not attempt to do.
Having learned the first lesson, a people is prepared
for medical treatment, even preventive medicine.
But to make the sweeping observations sometimes
heard, is on a level with accusing our forbears of
malpractice because they wasted time on inferior
tactics as compared with methods of today/'

The work that the missionaries have accomplished
in Meshed is strongly apparent in Dr. Hoffman's ac-
count. "The Sacred Shrine of the Imam Riza in
Meshed/' he says, "had had a hospital of sorts for
many years before our mission hospital was opened
in 1915; but it was a place where men went only to
die; hardly a pane of glass in the whole place, wooden
bedsteads without sheets or pillow cases, a dirt floor,
and no stove. But in 1917 there was a reform; it
was rebuilt; a new doctor was secured, and the
workers put on white gowns; a new operating suite
was built, and surgery was begun on a small scale.
Again, when we secured a larger and better hospital
building in 1919, the Shrine hospital was moved
into a larger and better house and more doctors

254 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

were added to its staff. And when, again, in 1924,
the Mission hospital advanced a decided step for-
ward, through securing its own land and erecting a
good building, along with many other reforms, the
Sacred Shrine authorities soon began planning a
really modern hospital building which was begun
about three years later, a very elaborate series of
buildings, costing around a million dollars!

''This time the Mission hospital can never hope to
surpass it nor does the same need exist for its trying
to do so; for the status of medical practice has now
been established so well that it can carry on by itself.
The Mission hospital must still keep the lead in
certain fields, at present in surgery, which the Shrine
hospital has not yet put on a sound basis; but it will
give up one sphere after another as other hospitals
take over the burden, and as it seeks to eliminate
itself, as it has long ago given over the field of vacci-
nation for smallpox to the National Health Depart-
ment/'

In Isfahan is the headquarters of the British mis-
sionary work. In the men's and women's hospitals
there I saw strenuous and able work accomplished by
Dr. C. Merrill Schaffter, a graduate of Edinburgh
University, who in 1950 spent some time in America
at the Crile and Mayo clinics, and by Dr. Lucy
Pigott, whose brother and sister are also medical
missionaries. There are approximately one hun-
dred beds in each hospital, besides private rooms for
upper-class patients, isolation wards, roof shelters
for the tubercular, and operating rooms which no
London or New York surgeon would consider well-

THE MISSIONS 255

equipped, but in which ingenuity often takes the
place of supplies which we consider imperative.

They make sterilizers from gasoline drums and
other material at hand, and in every way save ex-
pense; emergencies are well met. There is an ade-
quate laboratory for general research and pathologi-
cal work; paraffin embedding of tissues, chemical and
microscopic bacteriological work for diagnosis and
for preparing vaccines. Electric light is still a nov-
elty and as such much appreciated for illumination
of surgical operations. Kerosene lamps were for-
merly used and at times candles.

An infinite degree of patience is needed for the
day's work in a missionary hospital. While I was
visiting Dr. Schaff ter's hospital, he returned one noon
for a light lunch and an hour's rest to his home,
which is in the hospital compound. He had been
up since five, removed infected tonsils from three
children, set a broken leg, and performed an abdom-
inal operation necessitated by an ovarian tumor
which, on being weighed after removal, was one-
fourth the weight of the patient.

Mrs. Schaffter, a trained nurse, who had been busy
with him all morning, was dashing off a letter to
their two boys in England. While waiting for her
to finish this the doctor told me about a man in a
dying condition who had, half an hour before, stag-
gered alone to the hospital door. On being ad-
mitted, he had given his name and that of the village,
some miles away, from which he had walked. He
had a high fever, bloodshot eyes, rapid, feeble pulse,
distended abdomen; he was only able to mumble

256 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

scant information before he became unconscious
and in a few minutes died.

The doctor could only guess from the distention
and the symptoms of acute pus poisoning that the
man had a ruptured appendix or ruptured typhoid
ulcers, causing general peritonitis. He immediately
sent information to the Amniah, the city health
official, that the man had three tomans ($1.80)^ in
his clothes, sufficient to pay for a box for burial;
that the man had given no address of any relative or
friend, and that in the hot weather he would appre-
ciate it if the city officer would have the body re-
moved from the hospital as soon as possible.

This was the duty of the Amniah. We were
scarcely seated at the luncheon table when a male
nurse ran in, with embarrassed apologies, to say
that the Amniah had arrived and was in a fearful
temper. Dr. Schaffter returned at once to the hos-
pital and was greeted with the savage inquiry: "How
did you kill this man?"

Despite the established facts, the Amniah insisted
that a man who died five minutes after arriving at
the hospital must have had something done to him
there which precipitated death. He demanded that
Dr. Schaffter should make a post-mortem examina-
tion and report the actual cause of the death. The
doctor refused, explaining that he had two preg-
nant patients who would need his attention within
four hours, that he had an operation to perform on
a child, and he could not endanger the lives of other
patients by risking the transference of infection
which might result from his making this post-

THE MISSIONS 257

mortem, especially as he had no further legal respon-
sibility in the case.

Angrily threatening to send Dr. Schaffter to prison,
the Amniah went off and sent one after the other of
the Iranian doctors in the city to the hospital to
examine the corpse; each was so overwhelmed by the
odor from the morgue that he hastily declined the
dissecting knife offered to him. After eight hours
the Amniah finally removed the body, complaining
to Dr. Schaffter, "Why did you have to give me such
a headache?"

The doctor replied calmly, "You would have had
just as much headache if I had turned the man away
from the door to let him die in the street." No
more was heard of the incident.

Missionaries are as varied in personality as other
folk, but they are united in their flair for human
welfare. The different temperaments of the Ameri-
can leaders who have been greatly loved by the
Iranians have fitted into their different needs.

Doctor Shedd was the man sought for advice when
troubles arose between the dwellers along the shores
of Lake Urumia. They differed from one another
in religious outlook, social position, business inter-
ests, "financial status, and race; but Mohammedan
and Christian, Syrian and Kurd, Armenian and
Iranian, all went to him with their confusions of
mind and emotion. In the mission yard he would
sit as a friendly arbiter, listening to protests which,
if they had not been talked out on neutral ground,
might have proved a serious tax on the local justices 1
time and patience and would have led also to much

258 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

111 will He so guided the discourse that logic rather
than passion prevailed, and usually was able to lead
the contestants to decisions which were amicably
accepted.

Doctor Packard of college athletic fame uncon-
sciously won the admiration of Iranians by the vital-
ity which enabled him to go at any hour of day or
night, no matter what the weather, through moun-
tain passes deep in snow, breasting the wind to help
the destitute medically and surgically. At the hos-
pital at Kermanshah, for instance, I learned in look-
ing over the hospital records, that Dr. Packard aver-
aged ten operations a day. The clinic patients, of
whom there are on an average a hundred a day, pay,
when they can afford to do so, twelve to thirty cents
for their tickets.

The majority of patients are treated free, but it is
only fair, when they can pay, to have them do so, in
order to make the hospital as nearly self-supporting
as possible, for the American salaries, paid from the
United States, the erection and equipment of build-
ings, care of grounds and many other items, drain the
missionary funds. Many who know nothing about
missionaries are apt to be hypercritical. I had an un-
usual opportunity to see at close range what their
lives are like.

Dr. and Mrs. Packard often work fifteen hours a
day, from eight in the morning until eleven at night,
and they are lucky if they have as much as twenty
minutes' rest in the afternoon. Dr. Packard has been
well known in the foreign office in England for many
years. When our Ambassador to England, Mr.

THE MISSIONS 259

Davis, asked if it was possible that all the mission-
aries were said to have done in Urumia was true, a
member of the British Foreign Office laconically re-
plied, "Double that!"

Toward the end of the first World War, the in-
habitants of the town of Geogtapa were besieged by
the Kurds. Many from other villages had assembled
here in two churches, as strongly built as fortresses,
which stood on a high hill made of the ashes of innu-
merable long-dead Zoroastrian fires. A ferocious
battle was going on. Many villagers had been killed
while trying to reach the thick-walled sanctuary.
There was seemingly no hope for any of these impris-
oned people, but they prayed as they fought, deter-
mined to defend to the last man and woman the
sacred ground.

No one will ever know how a messenger made
his way through the Kurdish encircling camp to
Urumia to find Dr. Harry Packard, and beg him to
come to lift the siege. Dr. Packard was known in
college days in Colorado as "Home-run Harry" for
his baseball prowess. His athletic strength and
skill had been shown by chance in Iran when he
caught the forelock of a charging, wild horse and
threw it on its side. He was well known to the
Kurds, for he had gone often, attended only by his
Mohammedan servant and helper, to answer their
calls for medical and surgical care. Imperious mes-
sages were frequently sent by the Kurdish chieftains
or by their generals to the mission hospital urging
the doctor to come hastily. He often had to operate
under primitive conditions. He had taken a thou-

s?6o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

sand handicaps and saved many lives. He had be-
come the friend of many grateful Kurds who, how-
ever cruel and rough they might be to others, appre-
ciated his skill and character.

In spite of snipers all along the road, the messen-
ger from Geogtapa finally reached Dr. Packard.
Breathlessly he inquired if he could return with him.
The doctor had just finished his morning's work-
operations, childbirth, fractures, the heavy task had
been well done; he needed an hour's rest. Would
he go at once? Yes.

Those who wished him a good journey knew that
there was scant chance of his returning alive. But
all the missionaries, doctors, nurses, teachers, his
wife among the others, agreed that there was but
one thing for him to do. A young woman ran after
him with a small flag. He fastened the emblem of
freedom to the end of his cane, lifted it to his shoul-
der, and marched off. Snipers he disregarded. When
they saw that he did not dodge, or try to evade
attack, but strode fearlessly, they ceased firing.

Dr. Packard had innumerable delays in reaching
the commander. The intervening officers said the
chief would not halt the attack, but that probably
this would be the last assault on the churches. Fin-
ally, pushing on between the ranks of excited men,
the doctor reached one who had spent weeks in his
hospital and been cured of a devastating fever, and
whose wife's life also had been saved. That man
listened.

Through the firing lines they pushed on together,
in their haste narrowly escaping being shot. When

THE MISSIONS 261

Dr. Packard reached the chieftain he found him in-
flamed by the victory within his grasp. The mis-
sionary pleaded for the lives of the Christians; the
sheik shook his head.

"The last time my eye met yours/' Dr. Packard
told him, ''was by the bedside of your first-born son.
I left my own sick son to come to yours, and went
to work next day without an hour of rest. Then you
said if I ever asked a favor of you it would instantly
be granted. I now ask you to give me these people's
lives." The sheik's eyes were hard.

The doctor continued, "Have I ever refused you
or your people help? Have I ever failed to come at
all hazard when the passes were deep in snow, when
the roads were torrents from melting ice?" The
sheik held up his hand. "What are your terms?" he
queried. The doctor had had no chance to learn
the terms on which the Christians would surrender,
but he agreed for them that they would give up their
guns and ammunition, and that they would allow
the Kurds to take all their property, if their lives
would be spared and they would be permitted to go
immediately to Urumia. The chieftain ordered the
rain of fire on the churches to cease.

"Go in peace," he said, "and take the Christians
with you."

Slowly, in a thin line, the rescued Christians came
from the churches 1700 of them saved by one man,
saved because he had done deeds of mercy. The
men and boys laid down their arms, the family groups
then pressed close together and, with their faces
turned resolutely from what they were leaving

262 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

their homes and all that they contained they fol-
lowed their deliverer to safety.

Dr. J. Arthur Funk was another of the missionary
doctors who contributed greatly to the well-being
and advancement of Iran. When he first went to
Iran in 1902 at the age of twenty-nine, there were no
medical schools. This tall and slender, well-trained
physician, filled with ideals, worked under great dif-
ficulties. A silent, reserved man with an amazing
capacity for work, he spent thirty-seven years in mag-
nificent service there. He was made a member of the
American College of Surgeons because of his distinc-
tion as a surgeon, operating successfully on difficult,
complicated cases, and surmounting the handicaps
which surrounded his work. These were greatly re-
duced by the building in Hamadan of a three-story,
up-to-date hospital, which he designed and super-
vised in every detail so that he was in effect architect,
contractor, and builder.

Dr. Funk had no skilled assistants, and his early
work had to be done without nurses. He performed,
on an average, ten to twelve operations a day. The
most seriously ill were all placed in one ward so
that he could direct and assist the Iranian servants
in the after care. More than half of his cases were
unable to pay for their operations, and the doctor
earned a large part of the upkeep of the hospital by
making outside calls in the town and far up in the
mountains around Hamadan. These mountains
are so high that in winter they were frequently im-
passable, and weeks often passed before his wife

THE MISSIONS 263

heard from him. During this time the responsi-
bility for the care of patients in the hospital fell on
the young Iranians under training to become physi-
cians, many of whom have since done fine work for
their country.

In the American hospital in Hamadan, I made
the rounds with Dr. Funk, and was interested to
see how casually he referred to the success of his
work. There was a little wizened baby which looked
like a dried prune. To overcome its dehydrated
condition he ordered the nurse to give it a neutral
bath daily and a glass of water every hour for three
days, in addition to liquid nourishment at the proper
intervals.

In another bed there was a beautiful Jewess re-
covering from the removal of a stone in her kidney.
Next to her was one with very prominent eyes, which
immediately made me think of goiter, but I noticed
there was no enlarged thyroid gland distorting the
shape of her neck. On looking more closely, I ob-
served the thin line of the operation which had
removed the enlarged thyroid. The doctor was tak-
ing her pulse and remarked, "Her heart is steady
today."

On the next bed was a convalescent patient who
had had cancer of the stomach removed and a gastro-
enterostomy. This is a delicate operation connect-
ing the intestine directly to the most dependent por-
tion of the stomach. The doctor merely remarked,
"Well."

The next two cases had been operated on for
hernia, one of which had been complicated by an

264 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

appendix filled with pus. The nurse told me with
pride how rapidly they were recovering. The doctor
merely said, "Getting well"

The next surgical case was one of a tumor, which
had been removed; that would have been simple
enough, but it had been complicated by maternity.
The nurse said in a low tone, "It turned out to be
twins/' The doctor remarked, 'Two normal
births."

The next case was that of a child who had had a
cleft palate so extreme that the upper lip was also
divided. The dressings were still on, but the boy
spoke in a natural tone, which proved that he was
convalescing satisfactorily.

' There were thirty beds filled with surgical and
twenty-two with medical cases.

It is the Mohammedan custom to bathe the baby,
for the first time, forty days after its birth. The
fact that in the missionary hospitals the baby is
washed soon after its advent is now generally ac-
cepted, but it was for years regarded as a startling
innovation. Now the girls and boys learn hygiene
in school This is a great benefit, because they ex-
plain it to their families and so help to make them
willing to accept the "ways of the West." The young
scholars have amazed expressions on their faces when
they learn that what they believe to be helpful is
really dangerous.

One of the great fallacies already pointed out is
that "all running water is pure." This is one of
the causes of the prevalence of dysentery, typhoid
fever, and other intestinal diseases. For while the

THE MISSIONS 265

water is pure when it conies from the mountains, it
receives infection in practically every village through
which it runs. Only in the largest cities is there
proper sewerage disposal, so throughout the country
soil infection is frequently transmitted by drainage
water. This has in the past been partly overcome
by the Mohammedan custom of ceremonial bathing
three times a day; morning, noon, and night before
prayers the face, hands, elbows, ankles and feet are
washed. It is obligatory to take a full bath only once
a month, at which time the hair is thoroughly washed
as well.

Dr. Funk's tact was often called on, as was that
of all the missionaries, in leading the people to
realize that the hearsay method of the herb doctors
was often dangerous because of the use of nostrums
which delayed the patient from having proper treat-
ment or prevented his reaching a competent doctor.

One day a child came to the clinic with pus stream-
ing from his arm. He was covered with charms
which were sewed on all his clothes. His parents
obviously believed that they would be effective in
warding off evil. Near the sore, the little boy wore,
as an amulet, a miniature copy of the Koran. The
history given by the mother was that the child had
fallen on a sharp stone, five days before, and cut
himself. Her village doctor had told her to place
in the cut a blue bead. The only one available had
b/en used with others to ornament the collar of the
family donkey. She cut one of these off the sweaty
leather thong which held it in place, together with
a few donkey hairs; she quickly put the bead, hair,

266 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

donkey sweat, and all into the gaping cut, and, as
directed, bound it up tightly. She complained to
the doctor, "Since yesterday that yellow, sticky water
has been streaming down his arm and hand/'

She looked so helpless that I felt sorry for her.
The child had a good constitution, for without more
than the average resistance to infection, he would
have died of blood poisoning or been too ill to be
brought to the clinic. With proper care he made a
speedy recovery.

Every bed in the hospital is always filled, and
there are cots on the wide veranda for the tuber-
cular cases. Even the halls are crowded at times.
Below, in the large basement, there are clinic rooms,
an X-ray department, storerooms and a reserve of
supplies and surgical dressings made by the women's
church groups in the United States. A large reserve
is necessary, as the distance from America and the
difficulty of transportation are great; the roads often
are impassable from heavy snowfalls and drifts in
winter, and from washouts during the spring floods.

Although Dr. Funk's contributions to Iran are
beyond computation, he himself was extremely ret-
icent about discussing his work. Through his ef-
forts men have been trained to carry it on. Day after
day he struggled toward amazing achievements
against every conceivable handicap, having to do for
himself all the things which an American doctor has
done for him in a modern hospital supplied with the
proper equipment. Gifts from his patients were
promptly turned into money for the hospital, and
gifts often were substitutes for payment of a fee.

THE MISSIONS 267

On one occasion, when he restored sight to a
woman who had cataracts on both eyes, she presented
him in payment with two scrawny turkeys which had
to be fed for two months before they were worth
killing. After another serious operation he received
an emaciated chicken with its head hanging down
and its eyes half closed in death.

Hard and strenuous Dr. Funk found a missionary's
life, but never monotonous. There were no idle
hours. At any moment he might be called upon
to do anything. He had even been requested by the
bereaved to supervise the making of a coffin, as well
as directing the undertakers and grave diggers, while
sympathetic friends covered and lined the wooden
box to make it look less terrible.

When asked why he had gone to Iran in the first
place, the doctor replied, "As a boy and student at
Wittenberg and later at college in New York, my
interest became aroused in missions in general. Par-
ticularly the medical aspect appealed to me as a
means through which I could best express the ideal
of Christian service to men denied the privileges
and advantages which we in America enjoyed. I did
not deliberately choose Iran as a place to work in.
In fact, like so many people, I knew little of the
country, but I felt I should go there when the op-
portunity offered."

"I feel very optimistic about the future/' Dr.
Funk remarked when he was in America in 1938.
"Of course, there are reactionary elements among
the people which are only held in leash by the strong
personalities of the present regime. The preroga-

268 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

tives of the religious leaders, who once wielded a
powerful influence, have been severely curtailed, and
should an opportunity offer they would make a bid
for power. They would not be permanently suc-
cessful simply because the majority of the people
would not stand for a return to the old conditions.
While heavily taxed, as yet there is no foreign^ or
internal government loan; but the necessity for im-
porting machinery of many kinds to develop the
natural resources might necessitate outside help.

"As for the future of mission, educational, and
medical work, we cannot be so certain. The aim
is to develop national leaders, trained and educated,
who will eventually take over the responsibility for
the growth of the Christian churches. As an indi-
cation of the standing we have, I might cite a recent
government request to our American hospitals to
organize a government nurses' training school with
Americans at their head, both in mission hospitals
and in those established by the government in several
centers/'

Dr. Funk, after his first year's assignment to the
Teheran hospital, spent all the rest of his missionary
service in Hamadan, where he received magnificent
help from his wife, Susanna Leinbach Funk. His
medical work covered all phases of service dispen-
sary, hospital, visits, itineration, and teaching. He
did notable work in training Persian physicians. He
took students into his hospital, trained them as ap-
prentices, then as internes, giving them " the benefit
of his own skill and knowledge, plus practical ex-
perience in surgery and the wards.'*

THE MISSIONS 269

During the First World War he remained at Ham-
adan, through the Turkish invasion, sustaining the
people by his courage. He died o heart disease in
March, 1939, an d his useful, unassuming and tri-
umphant life came to a quiet close. Dr. Funk's as-
sociate, Dr. Lichwardt, was a surgeon in the World
War. Soon after its close he volunteered for mis-
sionary work. His robust health, high color, broad
shoulders, and abundance of vitality were in con-
trast to his slender; pale, quiet, but equally tireless
predecessor. Mrs. Lichwardt, an army nurse, has ably
assisted her husband. Indeed, such a mass of work
could not pass weekly through the hospital if these
and their assistants were not devoted to their respon-
sibilities. Each has always been ready to carry on
in perfect cooperation. Dr. Lichwardt, before com-
ing to Hamadan, practiced in Meshed and was par-
ticularly active in alleviating the physical and mental
suffering of lepers. Since Dr. Funk's death, he has
succeeded him as director of the Hamadan Hospital.
The Iranian Christians asked to have the privilege
of placing in their church a tablet paying tribute to
their beloved physician. The church was crowded
with many who were converted Jews and Mohamme-
dans. In the polished brass, in Iranian characters,
deeply cut, was the text:

"Hz CAME, NOT TO BE MINISTERED
UNTO, BUT TO MINISTER/'

XVII
THE VEILED WOMAN

THE Arab invasion of Iran, with its bloodshed
and misrule, was marked by injustice to women
from which it has taken them long, humiliating
centuries to emerge. They were forced to accept a
mode of life dictated by the tenets of Mohammed,
based on nothing higher than his jealousy of his
youngest wife. The tyranny of the Koran's social
codes was pressed inexorably by the priests. The
change of religion from the high-minded old Zoroas-
trian faith had much to do with the decline of Iran's
ancient glory. How could it be otherwise?

Islam's doctrine of woman's inferiority fed the
vanity of men, and the translation of this teaching
into life encouraged progressively their gratification
in self-indulgence and weakened their characters.
Thus, this derogatory estimate of women became a
boomerang. It reduced by half the level of civiliza-
tion; because, as has been eugenically established,
progress in the fine arts of national development de-
pends upon the equal sharing of opportunities and
responsibilities by both men and women. It de-
pends upon equal opportunities for education, equal
sense of responsibility, and equal position and in-
fluence. Though here and there high ideals are

270

THE VEILED WOMAN 271

found in the Koran, the seclusion of women and
their relegation to an inferior position were accepted
as religious commands and political policy.

It is refreshing to recall that in the enlightened
days of Zoroaster, according to whose progressive,
philosophic creed women had equal privilege with
men, there was no mental bondage. Men and women
were taught that they must fight equally "the Prin-
ciple of Evil," A hriman, and that, helped by Ormuzd,
they also might attain eternal life at the Resurrection.

The monogamous ideal of the Zend-Avesta, the
sacred book of Zoroaster, accorded to domestic vir-
tues a high place. "Purity is the best, the fairest of
all things. It is, next to life, the greatest good, even
as thou hast said, oh, righteous Zarathustra!" Earth
is most happy when "the faithful erects a house with
a wife and children within, with cattle and good
herds, where virtue, the fire, and every blessing of
life continues to thrive/'

Education at that period was not profound either
for men or women. But equally they enjoyed art,
literature, scholarly debates and semi-mythical
sciences which were discussed in the courts and
among the aristocratic classes. Much of the stability
of prosperity during the Achaemenian and Sassanian
dynasties was due to the intelligence of women, for
while men were engaged in widening frontiers, the
women carried on the basic arts of society.

The social life of pre-Islamic days is well known
through miniatures, early manuscripts, and mural
paintings of graceful unveiled women in handsome
dress,, surrounded with as much dignity as were the

272 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

kings and princes. Some of these show the quaint,
luxurious custom of ladies sitting in a bower of
flowers, while gentlemen nearby are engaging lions
in single combat. The illustrations in the exquisite
replica of The Poems of Nizami, published by the
British Museum, have plates giving excellent exam-
ples of the prominence of women and the respect
in which they were held. In one of these, which is
rated as being artistically supreme in color and com-
position, women are depicted as fireproof and glo-
rious angels in the midst of swinging censers which
contain leaping flame. They are escorting the
prophet to heaven. This allegory shows the survival
in art of the Zoroastrian sacredness of fire, and also
respect for women.

The epic literature is rich in tales of love and
chivalry. The Shah-nameh (Book of Kings) by the
great poet Firdausi, records many deeds of Shah
Jamshid, one of the earliest rulers. It includes a
dignified, charming account of his meeting the ex-
quisite daughter of Gureng, King of Zabulistan, who,
by her skill, valor, and judgment, had won fame as
a warrior in her father's army. With delicacy the
poem tells of their love and marriage. Then there
are the legends of the fair Princess Tahmimah, who
was adored by the youthful warrior Rurtam and of
the romantic finding of a queen for King Kal Kaus,
and the story of heroic womanhood is set forth in the
narrative of Byzun and Princess Manijehp.

The beauty of the unmarried woman most fre-
quently held place in Iran's song, yet married life
was not forgotten. Examples of the recognition of

THE VEILED WOMAN 273

a love that is considerate, tender, and deep are in the
romantic story of Laili and Majnum, which is called
the Romeo and Juliet of the East. This portrayal
of undying love has in it something of the sweep of
the desert and the constancy of the stars.

Among the early women of distinction was Homai,
a princess with literary talent, who relates a series of
tales known as the Hezar Afsane. This comprises
about two hundred stories told upon a thousand
nights, and so well told that interest never lagged.
It is from this collection, transcribed during the life
of the authoress, that the Arabian Nights was con-
structed. She is mentioned in the Avestas, and also
by Firdausi. Her mother, Shahrazaad, was a Jewess,
and brought with other captives from Jerusalem to
Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. She is recorded as
having delivered her nation from captivity, and has
been identified with Esther of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, as well as with Scheherazade of the Arabian
Nights.

Women of royalty in those days often took an
active part in political and military activity; the
wives of the kings exerted much influence, bad as
well as good. For instance, Amestris, the wife of
Xerxes, is said to have been instrumental in the death
of her husband at the hands of two of his chief re-
tainers. Xenophon has immortalized the zeal of
Parusatis in her efforts to place her son, Cyrus the
Younger, upon the throne, and her plotting in his
behalf against his elder brother, Artaxerxes, who
was not her son. Herodotus records a woman who, in
the strength of outraged motherhood, brought the

274 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

great conqueror, Cyrus, to his end because her son
had been captured and tortured by him. Cyrus,
thinking a country governed by a woman could
easily be overcome, sent forth his army against Tomy-
ris, the Queen of the Massagetae, a warlike tribe
inhabiting the steppes north of the Taxartes River.
She led her troops into battle and in hand-to-hand
combat relentlessly slew the great leader.

During the Sassanian dynasty women figured
prominently. Two queens held the scepter. In
poetry there are many verses which praise virtue and
acknowledge irresistible love at first sight. These en-
thusiastically represent a whole lifetime of emotion,
condensed into one passionate, rapturous moment,
and also there are others which praise the calmer
affection which lasts.

In those days there existed no prejudice against
an active, as well as an amatory, life for women, and
ancient records indicate a high degree of respect for
marriage. The birth of a girl was not the cause of
lamentation and sometimes of infanticide, that it
later became throughout the Orient. Lenorman
says, " Marriage was free and consecrated, preceded
by betrothal, symbolized by the joining of hands.
The husband, in the presence of the Zoroastrian
priest, took the right hand of the bride and pro-
nounced sacred words. The bride's hair was parted
with the tip of an arrow, she was then conducted to
her new abode with a present of fire and water; there
was a procession around the domestic hearth. The
father of the bride presented a cow, which was in-
tended originally for the wedding feasts, but in later

THE VEILED WOMAN 275

times It was taken to the house of the bridegroom
as part of the dowry, and as an emblem of agricul-
tural richness.

Today we have an illustration of life under the
Zoroastrian aegis, for living in India is the largest
surviving group of the devout followers of Zoroaster,
called Parsees, meaning Persians, also "the Children
of Light/' After the Mohammedan invasion, rather
than submit to Arab rule, they had the courage to
brave the eastern mountains and pressed on into
India, where they might live in religious freedom.
Reliability and justice are keynotes of their character.
Many of the ablest Bombay merchants are Parsees.
They take entire care of their ill and old and poor.
They are kind and just in all their dealings. Their
women hold a dignified position in a monogamous
home life; are well educated and capable in the duty
and joy of child raising and home management.
Their dress has always been graceful, with robes of
pastel shades and embroidered borders; in their
homes they wear short sleeves that leave their arms
bare, which is considered a sin by Mohammedans.
In their daily religious observances at sunrise and
sunset, which I saw many times in India, there is a
transcendant consecration of the individual soul to
God. Both men and women wear white robes and
their ceremonial prayer is recited as they stand on the
earth at the edge of the sea and lift their arms to
the fire of the sun. Iran's loss was India's gain.

The wave of virulent fanaticism which swept out
of Arabia around the year A.D. 600 eventually forced
Mohammedanism on a large part of the world and

276 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

crushed the independence o women. Some critics
maintain that Mohammed did this to justify his own
sensualism and egotism and to emphasize the su-
periority of men. He had nine wives, so why should
not other women submit to the ignominy of being
merely their husbands* sensual property?

It was considered proper for a man to take a sigheh,
or "temporary wife" for a day, a week, a month, on
up to ninety-nine years; no financial arrangements
or legal obligations beyond the immediate payment
of a small amount of money were required. From
that day to this, men who did seasonal work in the
rice fields each paid a few pennies to a woman to
work for and with him, and also to live with him as
his "rice wife." Temporary wives picked up on jour-
neys, even on a pilgrimage to Mecca or to Meshed,
were customary. These were called ' 'shrine wives"
and became the sigheh of a succession of men. Did
this lessen acknowledged prostitution? Not at all.
In all cities there are quite as many degraded women
of that type as in monogamous countries.

The "shrine wives" became expert in selecting
temporary husbands, for, seeing the assortment and
being veiled, they all had the privilege of choice.
The younger and more attractive women preferred
handsome young pilgrims; the middle-aged chose
those who paid more and were less capricious. For-
tunately, the present Shah realizes that a sex orgy
is incompatible with religious ethics, and that Islam
cannot be acceptable to the clean-minded until this
degrading practice is abolished. True, it is claimed
that Mohammed, by abolishing incestuous marriages,

THE VEILED WOMAN 277

limiting divorce, and restricting polygamy to four
wives at a time, brought about benefits for Arab
women. Doubtless he was regarded by the men as a
"feminist" when he limited wives to four, and re-
placed the concubine by the sigheh! This solved the
problem of the illegitimate child, for the sigheh was
legally married and, though she must go at the end
of the arranged period, the man was responsible for
her for three months after her dismissal, and must
provide always for the children to whom he was the
father. Economic helplessness on the woman's part
was the basis of such barbarity.

Mohammed, following the teachings of the Old
Testament, of which he was a student, gave his fol-
lowers in Arabia a supreme monotheistic God in
place of their idols. According to one of his de-
fenders, a sentence in the Koran elevated woman to
the pedestal due her: "Paradise is under the feet of
the mother." However, the distinguishing point is
this, that while these measures of Mohammed meant
progress in Arabia, they meant retrogression to Iran,
whose people in civilization undoubtedly were eons
ahead of their conquerors. He did improve the posi-
tion of Arabian women, for they were on a par with
animals; and it was, indeed, the wretched state of
morals in Arabia at the time the Prophet lived,
which was responsible for much of the evil that befell
the Zoroastrian women, who were compelled to ac-
cept Islam.

In the Koran, Mohammed explains that "men are
superior to women on account of the qualities with
which God hath gifted the one above the other."

278 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

With rare exceptions women were supposed to be
stupid and lacking in intelligence, but fit to be
mothers once a year! "The world and all things in
it are valuable, but more valuable than all is a vir-
tuous woman." But the Moslem's idea of a virtuous
woman was an embodiment of flattering slavery,
motherhood, and ignorance.

The authority for the use of the veil, as stated in
the Koran, is the following: "Speak to the believing
women that they refrain their eyes . . . and that they
throw their veils over their bosoms" . . . obviously
to avoid tempting men. But the custom is believed
to have had a more personal and dramatic basis. One
day Mohammed was sitting with Ayesha, his four-
teen-year-old wife, when an acquaintance of his en-
tered the tent and, observing the beauty of the girl,
offered to buy her with a camel The Prophet was so
enraged that he ordered all women to be veiled from
the eyes of all men, except those of their immediate
family. Another version is given by Prof. R. A. Nich-
olson to the effect that Ayesha lingered one day be-
hind the caravan and met a young man. Mohammed
was disturbed lest an indiscretion had been com-
mitted, until he received a revelation that she was
innocent.

The veil and the seclusion of women may orig-
inally have been intended to protect them, in order
to safeguard a pure lineage at least on the distaff
side. This, however, cannot even remotely justify
the position fixed by Mohammed for women destined
only for the service of their lords, likely to be cast
off without the assignment of any reason and without

THE VEILED WOMAN 579

the notice of a single hour. No wonder the high-
minded Iranians of today, under the leadership of
the ruling^Shah, have changed all this and look back
upon it with repugnance.

Contrary to opinion, Mohammed did not teach
that women have no souls. He granted that both
men and women, by observing the five pillars of
faith, could enter Paradise. But it was more diffi-
cult for women to go through the pearly gates into
heaven, for they were not encouraged to make pil-
grimages to shrines, and many mosques were closed
to them; therefore, with these handicaps, how could
they be sure of crossing, according to an old legend,
on a hair of the Prophet's beard, from earth into a
paradise where the soil is of musk and houris wait
on men's every whim? The Prophet was reputed to
have taken a glimpse into hell and found that most
of its inhabitants were of the fair sex.

Child marriage was, alas, sanctioned by Moham-
med, who himself was married to Ayesha when she
was six years old, but, according to Islamic law, a
girl was not marriageable until the age of nine, a
boy at fifteen.

The great interest in the life of every girl was her
marriage, in which she had no choice. Since fami-
lies were customarily large and parents wished to
marry off their children early, it was they who ar-
ranged the whole affair, with the assistance of a
mullah; the priest acted as financial and nuptial ad-
visor. Money was as important as social position for
a suitable match. Sometimes the bride's parents gave
the girl twice or three times as many tomans as the

28o A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

man's parents gave him; the amount depended on
the relative social position of the families, and was
in proportion to the beauty, industry, accomplish-
ment in household arts, and general desirability of
the bride. The deferred dowry, named by the pa-
rents, was to insure them against having to provide
for the daughter in case she was divorced, as there
were usually other children for them to support and
marry off. Often mothers and fathers did not take
into consideration the relative ages, temperaments,
or personal likes or dislikes of the marrying couple;
daughters were frequently handed over to men old
enough to be their fathers, or even their grand-
fathers. Since there were no social contacts, they
could know nothing about one another before their
wedding. It was considered indelicate for a girl
even to see the aspirant to her hand. The couple
were not supposed to set eyes on one another until
their formal betrothal before a mullah.

When the fiance sent heras a preliminary testi-
monial of supposed affection a tray heaped with as-
sorted gifts, such as slippers, perfume, jewelry, etc.,
she was expected to select one from among them.
Then he was able to formulate an idea of her taste
and so send other gifts. But many a daughter refused
to accept any of these baubles, stoutly, pitiably in-
sisting: "I don't want to be married!"

It was easy to understand the psychology of a
young girl when weepingly she told her family that
she would not marry some man whom she had never
seen. For it meant leaving the circle to which she
had grown accustomed in which she felt protected

THE VEILED WOMAN 281

-the only circle, in fact, which she had ever known.
No woman, however young, going to live in the
house of a strange man to whom she must be either
a toy or a slave, could accept the inevitable without
apprehension, revolt, fear, or even disgust. For,
after all, every human being feels, however vaguely,
some stirring of personal independence and volition,
even when overwhelmed by destiny.

But the older women in the family assured a girl
if she was wayward that nothing could be more de-
lightful and satisfactory than having a home of her
own and a lawful husband, and that her children
would compensate for all hardships. For, is not
motherhood the greatest thing in every woman's life?
This effectually silenced any further protests.

An odd ceremony took place after a mullah had
arranged many details and money had passed through
his hands. All women of the house were gathered
into one room of the girl's home, while in the outer
rooms were the men of the family and their men
friends. The mullah, through a curtain, asked the
girl if she would admit her fiance, "who was knock-
ing at the gate/' -

"No," she replied, according to the custom of
being arch and demure, but often in real dread.

Then the mullah described elaborately all the
suitor's charms and extolled the marvelous fulfilling
of God's will for both of them to live in wedded
bliss, etc. . .

"No," she replied tremulously again. This was
required to be her last negative, for the third time
she must say, "Yes." Each "No" was the cue for

28s A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

excited urging on the part of all the women in the
room. The nervous tension around her and the
helplessness of her position was a terrific strain upon
her if she had any spirit. If not, she placidly fol-
lowed the age-old customs of the prescribed routine.
Many a girl would have liked to answer "No" to the
third request. But she was obliged to say "Yes";
there was no other life, outlet or opportunity, for all
the women would have chided and wheedled her
until she consented.

Then she turned her back to the door and held a
large mirror in her hand (perhaps the origin of our
Hallow'een custom). The man entered through the
curtain and advanced toward the back of his fiancee
to look over her shoulder into the mirror, where-
exciting moment they caught their first glimpse of
each other. And this meeting, at which each hoped
to read the other's thought by the revelation of fea-
tures, was in the presence of all the buzzing older
women.

Often there was a horrible shock on the part of
either or both. The girl, who had been told to ex-
pect a Lochinvar as her mother and the mullah had
described him might look into the mirror and see
an octogenarian, wrinkled and worn, a hunchback,
or a hideous man scarred from "Baghdad boil"!
And, should the surprise be a happy one, no privacy
was allowed for a caress, however ardent his glance
might prove.

And the situation is not without its awkwardness
for the man. Indeed, no bridegroom in America
ever walked down the aisle feeling more of a quiver-

THE VEILED WOMAN 283

Ing fool than did the young man who entered that
room of chattering, veiled faces and peered into the
mirror to see what sort of a nymph or witch he
was going to have to live with!

One poet whom I met in Iran told me the sad
tale of his dearest friend's betrothal. As he was poor,
his family were anxious to have him wed the daugh-
ter of a wealthy house. Like every poet, he idealized
women and looked forward to having a beautiful
bride who would be the endless joy of his life. He
was told by his mother and father that the girl was
attractive, the fulfilment of his dreams. What was
his horror when he looked over her shoulder into
the mirror and beheld a dumpy, ugly face! Though
his ideals had been shattered and his expectations
had collapsed, nevertheless he must go through the
final ceremonies in the prescribed time.

His parents were counting on this engagement be-
ing followed by an immediate marriage. He felt
sick when he left the bride-to-be's house, joined his
friends who were waiting outside the garden gate,
and told them to go away and leave him alone. But
they persisted in asking, "What is she like? Is she
beautiful?" To his dearest friend he confessed, with
poetic exaggeration, that she was as homely as "a
harpy in hell, with prunes for eyes and a mouth like
a lizard's. I wanted to have but one lovely wife for
my very own/' he groaned. "Now I will have to
take a second in order to bear life at all. I could not
stand that ugly one alone. She is dreadful. I will
commit suicide. That is the only way out/' As the
distressed young man continued to contemplate sui-

284 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

cide, his friend vowed something must be done to
cheer him up. Perhaps the mirror had distorted the
girl's face. He persuaded the mullah to arrange for
him to visit the girl on some pretext of delivering an
important message personally, in order that he might
see her for himself. The mullah consented, since
he was eager for the marriage to be consummated,
for he had become anxious concerning his hand-
some fee. The meeting was arranged. The friend
came back and said to the mournful poet: "You are
right. Commit suicide!" And he did.

The master kept his wives in the anderun, along
with his choicest carpet and his silk divans. This
dwelling was invisible from the outer courtyard of
the garden and from the biruni, the separate room
for the men. Such seclusion would be like a prison
to any American woman, for it was penetrated only
by the husband and near relatives. However, a lady
was taught to have no wish for exercise; her only
diversions were those of languid idleness.

Seldom did there exist any real friendship be-
tween a married couple. Often a husband would
pass his entire time in his biruni, the male apart-
ments which women were not allowed to enter.
Because a woman's primary value was her sex attrac-
tion, it was thought she had to be kept secluded in
order to remain faithful. This meant distrust rather
than understanding, and allowed no mutual respect.
There could be scant sanctity in a relation so easily
destroyable by divorce, and in which the man was
allowed as many irregular connections as he pleased,
even including the household slaves. It will not

THE VEILED WOMAN 585

surprise the Westerner to learn that there is no word
in the Iranian language for "home."

An old saying reads: "The God of women is a man;
therefore, all women must obey men/' A husband
had the right to forbid his wife's visiting her own
parents, and to punish her with a flogging if she had
been disobedient. Unfaithful wives were generally
put to death. A young Irani explained to me that
this was "for the sake of keeping the honor of her
husband untarnished/*

One of the most enlightened and philanthropic
noblemen in present-day Iran, when he was a young
boy exhibited his filial respect for his father by slay-
ing his mother because his father ordered him to do
so. Calm and unruffled, he walked into the anderun
and killed her with a shotgun because she was merely
suspected of infidelity. This same man became the
kindest of feudal overlords; he "sought only to purge
the honor both of his mother and father/' It is
probable that many such unfortunate women were
forced to take poison, but these acts were accom-
plished in secret; therefore, definite evidence is rare.

Not all women were downtrodden, however. A
few even managed to secure special privileges. A
lovely, red-haired Russian girl whom I met had mar-
ried under Islamic law. Her Iranian lover had been
fascinated by her grace and beauty as she walked
freely in the street* When he, much excited by being
able to propose for himself, asked her to marry him,
he swore that he would always be true to her. She
said to herself, "As I am a refugee far from my family,
I must try to think of everything/' and named a huge

5>86 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

sum of dowry, more than he or his family would ever
be able to pay. He agreed. "As you will. I will
love only you always; it doesn't matter how much
money I promise for the deferred dowry. It is pay-
able only in case of divorce and I will never want
one." After they had been married several years,
she became provoked by too much interference from
his mother, who lived with them. She went to see
a magistrate. There, although she had adopted the
veil, she managed to show her face to him, while
pretending to arrange her chadar, at which bold
action the magistrate's eyebrows lifted. Then she
sat down and confided appealingly, "Because I am
a foreigner, I feel that I can and must throw myself
upon your kindness and justice."

He was positive that she could.

She continued, with apparent reluctance, "My
mother-in-law hates me and makes me unhappy. Of
course, my husband loves me, but he doesn't dare
show it because of his mother's jealousy."

Naturally the magistrate, who had troubles of his
own at home, understood how that was.

"Now," she went on, "if you ever hear that I am
dead, you will know that I have been murdered. I
want to go on living and to return to my Russian
relatives. It is my duty to my mother to place this
report with you."

The record was made; she returned home and said
to her husband, "I have to have a new dress and a
new camel-bone bracelet." He protested that he
did not have money for such feminine extravagances;
he had bills to pay, etc. "Very well," exclaimed the

THE VEILED WOMAN 287

saucy jade, "I will have them, for I have been to the
magistrate and told him that if they find me dead,
you or your mother will have murdered me. I will
jump into the well and you will be blamed." For
five years she terrorized him by running around the
well. And she got everything she asked for! But
this is a breezy exception to the general rule, and no
doubt may be attributed to Cossack courage.

Under Islam, the laws governing divorce were
legion and always in favor of the husband. They
helped to crystallize the subject state of women.
While he possessed the power of divorce, absolute
and unquestioned, she had no privilege of a corres-
ponding nature. She was compelled to be quiescent,
even when abused or superseded, the perpetual slave
of her husband, if such was his will. Proverbs are
numerous, such as "Every divorce is lawful except
a madman's/"

A woman until recently when the laws were
changed by Shah Riza Pahlavi if she sought or
brought about a divorce, lost all claim to the pre-
marriage dowry promised, which would, if paid,
prevent her falling back on her father or brothers
for support. In accordance with Mohammedan law
and custom, at the time of the marriage, the girl's
father supplied her clothing, linens, furniture, and
other household needs. The man's father, if the son
was too young to have his own, provided a house and
garden. The dowry was a deferred payment, the
husband paying it to his wife when he divorced her,
unless he contended that she deserved divorce. She
was allowed no self-defense. The ease with which

288 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

divorce was effected provided its greatest danger,
for in the presence of witnesses a man needed merely
to say three times, "I divorce you/' and his wife had
to prepare immediately to pack her bags and leave
the harem. This triple-repeated incantation was
accompanied by the tossing of a pebble for each
"divorce you/' to emphasize that it was not impet-
uous!

The permission thus granted men to free them-
selves of all responsibility for the unfortunate wife
made her helplessly supine. She had to endure all
things and still try to please masculine caprice. The
Prophet's own grandson, for example, married and
divorced about one hundred women, though he had
only four wives at a time! With such a model it is
little wonder that Moslem men have been so free
and easy with marriage and divorce.

Up to a few years ago, the costume worn behind
the anderun walls would have made many a Wes-
terner gasp, for even Western lounging pajamas and
negligees are far more dignified than that boudoir
dress. Very short, full skirts which did not reach to
the knees, were an imitation of the tarlatan skirts of
ballet girls whom Nasir-ed-Din Shah admired during
his sojourn in Paris, when he offered to buy the en-
tire front row of the opera ballet corps to add to his
harem!

A woman's outdoor costume was for years a com-
plete disguise; trousers and socks in one piece were
drawn up to her waist. A white silk or cotton veil
covered her face and hung down to her knees. In
order to see to walk there were small perforations in

THE VEILED WOMAN 289

this long veil, which were referred to alluringly as
"nightingale eyes/' through which a woman looked
upon the world. Over all this she was shrouded from
head to feet in a shapeless black shawl or chadar.
As all the women dressed alike, a man was unable
to recognize his wife when she passed him on the
street. She was always chaperoned by her servant,
and unless she happened to wear a particular jeweled
clasp to fasten her veil at the back of her head, or
some other exterior adornment with which her hus-
band was familiar, he might unwittingly flirt with
his own wife, and often did, to her amusement. No
matter how charming a figure she might have, on
the street she resembled a waddling bundle of goods.
The white veil gave her a ghoulish appearance, and
the streets of Iran were filled with a procession of
wraiths. The mystery of womanhood was height-
ened by the fact that a woman was bound to main-
tain absolute silence in public, and any man who
would dare to lift her veil was subject to the penalty
of death.

If the Persian man had realized that frank friend-
liness was more likely to safeguard the very interests
he was trying to protect, he would not have insisted
that his wife, mother, sister, and daughter should be
enveloped in chadars, which did not prevent frivo-
lous behavior! A lady in a chadar might slip a note
to a man unperceived, rearrange the chadar in order
coquettishly to reveal her face, or lift it to her knee.
She could borrow this disguising garment from a
maid who was in her confidence, and keep any ren-
dezvous she might wish when she was supposed by

290 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Moslem theory to be more virtuous because of the
disguise in which she walked.

In this restricted existence, women were thrown
entirely upon each other for any diversion or amuse-
ment. They gave parties in their high-walled gar-
dens at which they could gossip and, with the chadar
removed, show off their clothes and their jewelry.
Weekly visits to the public bath were occasions for
complete undress and for a whole day of gossiping!
The bathing was in a large tank and occupied many
hours, after which they reclined on cushions, in an
Iranian beauty-parlor manner, to have their hair,
their fingers, and their toenails dyed with henna or
indigo. Some of them spent much time in learning
to play small musical instruments, in making and
eating sweets, in embroidering, sewing, painting,
and other minor domestic arts.

'Today a child of seven in the United States has
more outside interests than the average woman in
Iran had until recent years. When a Mohammedan
lady visited a mosque-and this was a high privilege
she sat behind a screen. Even shopping a favorite
activity with most women was generally denied her,
and in the bazaars nearly all the customers were men.
The high-class women sent their servants to purchase
whatever was necessary for the household. When
they did shop, five or six would go together in a car-
riage, closely veiled and giggling with excitement.
They awkwardly hurried from the carriage into the
shop where they sat, according to Eastern custom, on
the floor and discussed at length with each other the
merits of the various materials displayed.

THE VEILED WOMAN 291

It seems strange that in all this time there was no
powerful impetus among the women to improve
their lot. But it is easier to understand how their
attitude became perforce one of complacence when
the fact is taken into consideration that from infancy
a little girl was trained to a life of suppression; her
duties were waiting on her brothers and parents, by
whom she was usually neglected as they were not in-
terested in her. Also/ the influence of climate, re-
ligion, and the Oriental temperament led to a placid
acceptance of life.

XVIII
THE UNVEILED WOMAN

THE success of the present Shah in removing the
absurdities by which Mohammedan women
have been handicapped for one thousand three hun-
dred and more years is clearly shown in contrast to
the contents of a book printed in Resht as recently
as 1926. It was considered then as the last word
regarding social conditions. It has a surprising title
The Means of the Chastity of Women. It is written
by Hajji Shaykh Yusuf of Najaf and of Gilan. His
maintaining two residences marks him as a man of
distinction, and the confidence with which he writes
indicates that he expresses the opinions which were
highly approved so short a time ago. The following
are excerpts from his book:

The purpose of the treatise is to show that the world
furnishes brilliant proofs and clear arguments for those who
believe in the veil and to show that a sane mind, a correct
taste, the habits of bees and the laws of peoples all testify
to the religion of Islam.

The Creation of Woman The expounders have said that
the creation of woman from a rib taken from the left side
of man suggests that the physical and animal side in woman
is stronger, and that the spiritual and angelic is greater in
men, since the right side is the symbol of the spiritual and
the left the symbol of the physical kingdom.

292

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 295

Their Mental Weakness or Deficiency in All Things
All the codes of law intended for the guidance of mankind
toward the truth and designated for making smooth and
orderly the state of human society, agree in this, that trans-
acting business with a woman is like transacting business
with one who is deficient and in need of a sponsor and
guardian; since woman in origin, creation, body, propriety
of conduct, opinion, intelligence, and action is inferior to
man, and, as the doctors of ethics have declared and ex-
plained, is overcome by fleshly desires. These learned men
say that the characteristics of love for amusement, addic-
tion to imagination, approval of intrigue and fickleness are
more pronounced in woman than in man. The souls of
women are the places of reverberation of idle tales. They
are greater babblers, more inclined to imitation and to the
following of injurious beliefs than men.

Ali, son-in-law of the prophet, said: "I hear that your
women obtain mastery over you by weeping. Do you not
forbid their loud weeping?"

The wise men and the sages have not directed their atten-
tion to the world because they have held it to be unworthy
of consideration, transitory, and fickle. Since woman is
fickle, they have compared the world to a woman, who is,
therefore, unworthy of consideration.

The Faith, Lot, and Intelligence of WomanHis Majesty
the Apostle, Mohammed, all praise to Him, said: "He con-
sidered women to be weak in religion, deficient in intelli-
gence, and plunderers of men's judgments." His Majesty
Sadiz said in regard to women: "Disobey your women in
lawful things, lest they command you to do unlawful
things/'

The Prophet said, "My merit for the future life consists
of prayer and my worldly pleasure consists of women." His
Majesty, the Apostle, said, "From your world, I love only
women and perfume."

Whoever jests with a strange woman, God will imprison
him a thousand years for each word.

294 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Whoever shakes hands with a strange woman will arrive
at the resurrection bound with a yoke and chain.

Man has .the right to admonish and chastise a woman.
In case he fears she may be refractory, let him. exhort and
admonish her. If she does not respond, let him ignore her.
Then let him beat her; but not so as to break a bone.

The transition from the social conditions reflected
in the above quotations could not have been made
so quickly had not two forces worked favorably to-
gether. A hundred years of Western education,
conducted in the leading cities of Iran by British
and American missionaries, resulted in thousands of
men and women realizing the need of such a change.
The reforms could not have been brought about
without the edicts and forceful leadership of the
present Shah.

From the very hour that Riza Shah was crowned
King of Kings, the position of women has gradually
been changing. Aside from his laws concerning mar-
riage and divorce, the adoption of Western dress
caused a clash with the priests.

As far back as 1929, when the King and Queen of
Afghanistan paid their visit to Iran, the priests had
clashed with the Shah. King Amanullah and Queen
Suriyeh had made a royal tour of Europe and had
been given brilliant receptions in all the foreign
capitals. The fact that the Queen was unveiled when
abroad was of far more significance to Moslem Iran
than it was to Christian Europe. When photographs
of her in smart European costume were reproduced
in the Teheran newspapers, progressive women in
the capital smiled with inward delight at beholding

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 295

Mohammedan Surlyeh in a jaunty Parisian suit and
hat, but the grim, old-fashioned Moslems felt deeply
that it was a disgrace for her to have appeared with
a bare face before the unbelieving public of Europe.
If they could prevent it, this insult to religion would
not be repeated in Iran.

They appealed to His Majesty with a petition,
requesting that, before the royal guests arrived, the
Shah would have his Queen advised to be properly
veiled. He tore the paper into shreds, shouting:
'Tools! Do they not know that this is the twentieth
century?' ' The ecclesiastic messenger was nervous
and begged for a more definite reply. "Tell them/'
said the Shah, "that when the King and Queen of
Afghanistan arrive, I and my Queen will go out to
meet them. The Queen of Iran will wear her chadar,
but the Queen of Afghanistan may wear what she
pleases."

Another significant event occurred a few years
ago in the great mosque of Qum, ninety miles south
of Teheran Qum, the burial place of Fatima, sister
of the saintly Imam who is buried in Meshed. Her
mosque has been a great stronghold of Islam. Its
golden domes arid exquisite minarets are architec-
turally magnificent and are super-sacred. For years
it has been a sanctuary for criminals. A fugitive
who had committed some serious crime, if able to
outstrip his pursuers and reach the mosque, was safe
until he emerged, as was the case in the Catholic
sanctuaries in the Middle Ages, and in the cities of
refuge of ancient Israel.

At the feast of No-Ruz, the Queen, with members

s> 9 6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

of the royal household, went to this shrine to see
their New Year in, for it is propitious to be in a
holy place as the year begins. She sat in the gallery
and threw back her veil while she listened to the
sermon. The mullah, feeling himself secure in a
mosque, proceeded to denounce all modern tenden-
cies. One by one he went over the reforms supported
by the Shah, These, he declared, were sinfully lead-
ing the people away from Islam. A man in the
audience, thinking that the priest was unaware of
the presence of the Queen, went up to the high steps
on the top of which he sat in a stone chair, and
warned him to be careful. This inflamed the priest,
and he made his attack even more violent, shouting
wildly:

"O Mussulmans, we have lost our religion! Our
King and Queen are letting the glorious precepts of
Islam slip from our hands. The Queen is here with
face unveiled! Up upand at her!"

There was a mad rush toward the gallery and a
riot ensued. The Queen, through the protection
of her guards, remained unharmed. A message was
quickly sent to the Shah, who was in his Teheran
palace. Always a man of action, he ordered his car
to be made ready at once. He realized that this was
a challenge which would determine the real ruler o
Iran, himself or the priests, the State or the Church.
All winter the shrine of Qum had been a hotbed of
intrigue against the government. The supreme
psychological moment had arrived. The gantlet
had been thrown down.

He stepped into his Rolls-Royce and, followed by

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 297

a police guard, sped ninety miles to Qum. As his
car leaped down the road in a whirl of dust, every
speed law was broken. When grinding brakes
stopped the car at the mosque, there were two thou-
sand men milling around. His Majesty marched in.
To their horror he was booted and spurred and,
worse still, was wearing his sword, which was a
heinous violation of custom, for no one is permitted
to enter a mosque wearing boots or shoes or of all
things bearing arms! They must always be left
outside the entrance. Anything might happen now!
Most of the two thousand worshipers fled. The
offending mullah had also disappeared. The Shah,
a man of steel, stalked up to the Keeper of the Shrine,
boxed his pious ears, and struck him broadside with
his sheathed sword, then roared: "This must never
be repeated. No woman, Queen or otherwise, is to
be insulted in my kingdom!" In order to emphasize
the lesson, he ordered that several of the clerics be
at once imprisoned.

This twentieth-century ruler dared to do what no
other had ever done. By a single act, he made the
organized power of Islam obedient to him. The
mullahs were cowed and frightened. They had met
more than their match, and the people raised no
voice in their defense. The robbers and murderers
who had been in hiding, having sought refuge there,
implored his protection, but he ordered his guards
to drive them out of the mosque. Their enemies,
who had waited years for this moment, had their re-
venge. Those were lucky who were protected by
being put under arrest. Those who were driven out

298 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

would have fared better if they had been tried for
their misdeeds. Instead, they "disappeared."

Now that the chadars in Iran have been removed
by all women from Queen to peasant, the priests
have decided it is safest and best to voice no further
opposition. This is fortunate, for their cooperation
was absolutely necessary to persuade the masses of the
people to accept the change; pressure has been such
that the clergy have thought it wisest to put unveil-
ing into effect, even in their own households, and
have made an adroit about-face.

The feminist groups, with the sanction of the
Shah, have helped to make clear to the stubbornly
orthodox that God, as revealed to the Koran, never
intended women to be, in effect, slaves. They have
cited the texts which extol the virtue of women.
There have been few direct attacks upon the religion
itself, but its props are being removed.

An article in a Teheran newspaper bears signifi-
cantly on this:

Many of the real religious leaders who understand the
laws of Islam and the principles of that true religion now
realize that spirituality and high rank have nothing to do
with the shape of clothing, for theology is a much higher
and greater thing than outward appearance; secondly, that
the veil has not only been the means of concealing the rights
and shrouding the social advantages of women, but it was
also an ill-matched patch upon religion, for it actually has
brought many evils to womankind, and by encouraging
deception it has been the cause of transgressions from the
path of religion. Spiritual leaders who have studied the
fundamentals of Islam know that "veiling" is intended to
protect modesty and chastity, but the veil has not safe-

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 299

guarded these ideals; it has produced the opposite result
and, therefore, defeated the purpose of the holy Moslem
law in our social life.

The actual reforms concerning dress came gradu-
ally in order to prevent priest-incited riots such as
followed the King of Afghanistan's edict that women
there should be unveiled; no official edicts regarding
this were at first issued, but it was understood that
the government approved the adoption of "interna-
tional" dress. The first steps were taken by school
teachers, as they were under governmental control,
and by a few pioneer women who had traveled
abroad. Those without progressive husbands had to
wait. A diplomat's wife told me: "Can you believe
that once our court dress consisted of trousers so
wide they appeared as skirts, and the well-dressed
women wore ten or twelve pairs, one over the other?
Some were so stiff they could stand alone. Usually
they were embroidered, sometimes with jewels.
When we changed to full black silk Turkish trousers
under our chadars, it seemed quite an advance; of
course, we were thrilled when later we began to wear
gaily colored European dresses at home. On the
street we felt quite dashing, even a little wicked,
when their colors flashed through the black lace
panels which were set in the front of our new-style
chadars. With our ankles showing, high-heeled
shoes seemed almost bold, but French shoes are much
better than the Turkish heelless dragging slippers.
They made a flapping noise. It was next to impos-
sible/' she added, "for a woman to slip out without
being heard."

3 oo A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

There have been two more stages in the transi-
tion of dress in the last decade. The black trousers
were followed by black leggings which were tied
around the waist, a nondescript blouse, the whole
figure shrouded with a black chadar and a long
white veil, punctured delicately by embroidery be-
fore the eyes. Next the white veil was replaced by
a black horsehair vizor, called a peches, which cov-
ered the face when the head was bent forward, shad-
ing the eyes at all times. It was a decided improve-
ment, for it permitted more air and vision. It was
laid aside, or turned back, when the lady was paying
a call. But on the street it made a woman look like
a huge crow, with beak poked forward. When
European dresses began to be worn in the homes of
the upper-class women, a graceful and becoming
veil of flowered chiffon, or of pastel color, called a
prayer chadar, was worn at home. Occasionally a
lady, driving in her carriage, accompanied by her
servant, would wear a green or other decorously hued
chadar without the horsehair vizor.

Finally, in the spring of 1936, Shah Riza tempo-
rized no longer; he officially decreed that henceforth
all women of Iran must wear international dress,
including hats, gowns, shoes, wraps, furs, etc* Veils
and chadars in the future must be resigned to the
dust bin!

First an order was given that no girl wearing a
chadar was to be admitted to any school; teachers
were commanded to enforce this order strictly.
Schools which admitted girls in chadars would have
their doors permanently closed. Since they were not

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 301

admitted to school unless in European dress, and
feeling timid in the streets, the girls carried modern
straw hats under their chadars. Once in the court-
yard of the school, courage came to them and they
put them on. In the schoolrooms the girls looked
fresh, happy, and comfortable in their new-style
dresses. Such is the adaptability of youth that by
the time they returned home in the afternoon they
wore their hats and carried their discarded chadars
nonchalantly on their arms.

Second, teachers must give up veils or resign. They
were required to wear attractive dark blue uniforms
and small hats. Third, no women would be allowed
to walk on the main streets veiled. To meet this
order the women took them off as they came out of
the side streets, rolled them up and carried them
under their arms. If they did not comply with this
demand, they were arrested and the veil left at the
police station.

Fourth, in public conveyances drivers were not
allowed to take veiled passengers. A great social
impetus was given when all military officers and their
wives were invited, which meant obliged, to come
to the home of the governor of the province in which
they were stationed, dressed in international dress.

To supply the wardrobe needs of the poorer
women, the government set aside in its budget
$125,000 to be used in the purchase of European
dresses at the State's expense, to be resold at less
than cost in the shops of Iran. All minor govern-
ment officials were granted one month's extra pay
to be used in buying wardrobes for their families.

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

Where Western dress was decreed, there was a great
rush for dresses from missionary boxes; modes long
out of date did not look queer to them. Some manu-
factured the oddest pseudo-European dress. Self-
styled modistes were kept busy and the results were
often fantastic. Ideas of chic bordered on the ridicu-
lous. No wonder an artistically minded people found
them distasteful. The Jewish and Armenian women,
who had worn veils only to avoid annoyance, were
the first who were asked to remove them. Some hesi-
tated lest, as one said, * 'stones be thrown" at her.
Older women with drooping figures and those who
had no pretty dresses to wear, insisted that it was bold
to the point of vulgarity for women to show their
faces. The priests increased their distress by insist-
ing that only a prostitute walked on the street with
her face uncovered, and asked how they could sud-
denly be so brazen. Some husbands were nervous
and unhappy, because they did not want other men
to know their wives were plain. The young girls
were delighted. But to many of the older women,
naturally conservative and shy from many years of
seclusion, it seemed as though His Majesty had
shouted, "Off with their heads!"

Economy also played a large part in the objections
of many older women. One chadar lasted for a
number of years and did not get out of style, as do
hats, dresses, and accessories. And then, when hurry-
ing out on the street, it did not matter what sort o
a faded old dress was underneath; the chadar always
concealed it. There was one style of dress for old

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 303

and young, rich and poor* The quality constituted
the only variety.

Many women felt so undressed that they used
scarfs, bath towels, or anything which was available
to cover their heads, in an effort to be more com-
fortable. "Some will never leave their gardens/'
said one; "I cannot, for I feel as if I were obliged
to walk out in my nightgown."

The command was not at first imperative concern-
ing the older women's dress, for, though many men
approved of their daughters changing, they hesi-
tated about it for their wives. Others, realizing that
all women must come eventually from behind their
barrier of separation, took their wives to restaurants
and rode with them openly in carriages.

It comes as a surprise to learn that the veil, which
has caused us to pity the Mohammedan woman so
long, was not, in fact, hateful to all of them. On the
contrary, the Mohammedan woman had felt that it
had its advantages. For example, she could see and
not be seen; she could lift it gracefully, coquettishly,
when she wished. She could always unveil at home
and in the presence of other ladies in their gardens.
One said to me: "We feel awkward in European
clothes, and have no appropriate casual conversation
with which to be socially agreeable. We feel ill at
ease and positively embarrassed in the presence of
men/' Two women actually took an overdose o
morphine rather than remove their veils; others
have taken opium in order to be too ill to attend a
reception with their husbands. Generally, however,
as the Shah takes no excuses, the timid have perked

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

up with quinine or otherwise bolstered their cour-
age!

Few women are athletically trim. A lithe, svelte
figure is extremely rare. They are dainty when
young, but uncorseted usually as they grow older,
they have pendulous breasts and sagging abdominal
muscles. Naturally their vanity rebels at having to
wear European clothes not suited to their lines, and
they have anxiety regarding their comparative shall
I say competitive? appearance. But there is no
escape. Helpfully, the daily papers carry official diet
and exercise instructions on ''How to attain beauti-
ful figures."

The women of Iran, accustomed as they are to
Eastern emphasis on elegance in deportment, are
finding it a startling new experience to discover the
socially proper things in Western standards of eti-
quette. The teachers in the missionary schools are
receiving pressing requests for information on how
to behave on the street. An article in a Teheran
newspaper presents an amusing picture of the gen-
eral awareness of this need for instruction. It said:

Women on entering public meetings must on no account
remove their hats. They are not compelled to take off their
coats and gloves. Umbrellas should not be brought into
the room. Ladies should not primp with the aid o their
handbag mirrors in such a way as to attract attention.
Those who have the habit of putting their handkerchiefs,
cigarette cases or other articles in their breasts, or up their
sleeves, must quit and use their bags for such things. Loud
laughter and talking which attracts attention are forbidden.
As to blowing the nose, it should be done without noise,

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 305

yet without too obvious an attempt at concealment. To
take fruit or sweets with gloves on is forbidden.

Riza Shah, like Mustapha Kemal, has had the
vision to see that with half of his race in subjugation
there can be no forward-moving strength to keep
pace with the life in lands where women cooperate
equally with men. As a soldier during his early
days, the present ruler of Iran mingled with men in
the ranks who came from all parts of Iran. He
talked with tribal men, whose unveiled women are
active, responsible, and capable in the tribal organ-
ization; and he observed that the men seemed hap-
pier and had greater respect for their women. This
no doubt had an influence on his decisions.

Has the harem deadened initiative? In important
factor in the answer to this question is a recognition
of the fact that over half the women of Iran have
never been in harems. The tribesmen are monog-
amists. The village men seldom had more than
one wife. The poor in the cities could afford but
one. The Zoroastrians, the Nestorian and Armenian
Christians and the Jews, according to their religion,
are not polygamists.

The glamorous life of weal and woe behind the
segregating walls has been limited to those who could
afford large establishments. Kings and princes mar-
ried the daughters of other rulers, or of great gen-
erals. These elite ladies retained their individual-
ities through each having, as commanded by the
Koran, her own home amid the multiplicity of house-
holds in the extensive palace grounds, each one in-

306 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

dependent of the rest, with its own equipment and
servants.

A harem was never, as popular opinion has con-
ceived it, a large collection of women who were
thrown constantly, inevitably, together in a room
lined with divans, having none of the executive
duties such as running a home requires. In reality,
the only community life was in the high-walled,
spacious gardens.

Polygamy will have to be abolished gradually, in
justice to cases where several wives existed when the
new laws went into effect; but there is an improve-
ment, in that the present Mohammedan marriage
law reads: "Every woman or man who before mar-
riage deceives the other in such a -way that without
this deception marriage would not have taken place,
is punishable with imprisonment from six months to
two years." No longer can a man of sixty tell his
marriage agent to represent him to the parents of a
girl of fourteen as a young swain of twenty; nor can
a mother claim that her plain-looking daughter is
enchantingly beautiful. The Iranian police would
be on her heels!

There is further protection in the decree that no
man may take a second wife without informing his
first of his intention to do so and his prospective
bride of the existence of his first wife, whose consent
must be obtained. This is witnessed by the fact that
it must be entered on the marriage contract, and the
wedding to the second can only take place if neither
woman protests; but, being human, they often do.
If a man deceives a woman and declares that he is

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 307

unmarried, he Is liable to imprisonment, and the
woman is entitled to sue for divorce, which is a valu-
able new privilege.

Any man marrying a woman is now bound to pro-
vide her with a comfortable home, clothes, food, and
other necessities of life. If a woman should leave
her husband from fear of injury to her person or
property, and her conduct is justified by the evi-
dence, the court cannot order her to return to him,
and, as long as she is thus justified in not returning,
the husband is legally bound to support her.

Quite understandably, the old marriage and di-
vorce customs cannot immediately be obliterated in
toto. The recommendation states that future mar-
riages shall be to the one and only wife. It is, of
course, vital to the integrity of the nation that the
people should not be made to feel that their existing
wives are of unlawful status, A man cannot order
the second, third, or fourth wife out of the house,
with the announcement that only the first marriage
is legal. Preferences in affection must also be given
consideration.

Child marriage has been legally restricted by rais-
ing the marriageable age. Women physicians have
had much influence in this by persuading mothers
not to allow their daughters to marry until they are
sixteen or eighteen, and in this matter to exercise
influence over their sons as well. This is a funda-
mental gain, for ,the consent of the parents is neces-
sary. They used to think it desirable to arrange an
advantageous marriage as soon as possible.

This new law has a special advantage in encour-

3 o8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY JN IRAN

aging the education of girls. When they were
wedded in childhood, few parents considered it
worthwhile to educate them at all; even if they were
sent to school they were likely to be taken away at
the very age when they were most receptive to teach-
ing, and when they were totally unfit to undertake
the responsibilities of motherhood.

All the legal reforms are helping to emancipate
women and to give them security. Through their
own future action even better laws will be adopted.
Like crusaders, a few women set out to do what they
could, and, with the example of Western women to
stimulate and encourage them, they were Deter-
mined, even under the strictures of Islam, to imbue
their country with the best social, commercial, and
ethical codes of Western civilization. Quietly for
years the movement went forward. It is not reason-
able to expect ordinances to obliterate wholly ^the
habits of centuries. In order to improve the relation-
ship between men and women, the East is now taking
its first steps toward changing ideas hitherto regarded
as changeless. But despite the influence of Chris-
tianity and Western education, it is naturally a slow
process.

The family unit, no matter how it may change,
remains the cornerstone of every nation's strength.
Iran's women have now triumphed over spiritual
and physical bondage. Many of them, from the long
nervous strain and the apparent hopelessness of the
situation, have grown prematurely old, others have
become indifferent or depressed, most of them have
enough fortitude to revive.

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 309

But Iranian men, in a society that emphasizes and
increases their egotism, have not been forgiving; and
they have had difficulty in understanding that edu-
cated women make better mothers and more charm-
ing wives. They have been accustomed to expel in
fury any woman who disagreed with them, because
it was not a wife's place to oppose her husband, nor
to have a mind of her own. This psychological at-
titude has actually worked detrimentally to the hap-
piness of men themselves, and they are slowly realiz-
ing it.

In short, the women of Iran are helping to build
a new home and a new nation, in companionship
with their husbands, according to our Western ideal
of family lifenot as it is often garbled on the stage,
but as we try to live and do live in the majority of
our homes. This, plus the influence of new divorce
laws, etc., constitutes a challenge to the men, and they
will, perforce, learn more tolerance, self-discipline,
sympathy and idealism in regard to the marital con-
tract. For after all, man's concept of woman is an
index of his social progression. Only in an unde-
veloped or degenerate social order is woman's posi-
tion minimized or degraded.

Iran is undergoing a psychological revolution to-
day in the fields of the mental and emotional life both
of her women and of her men; but revolution spells
progress. Progress may have periods of regression,
may waver, but it is eternal and inevitable.

One of the most tangible evidences of progress is
the growth in educational facilities for women. As
late as 1926 statistics recorded that only 3 in every

3 io A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

1000 women could read or write. Since the World
War many upper-class families have sent their daugh-
ters to school in Europe, and large numbers have
graduated from the American schools for women in
Teheran, Meshed, Resht, Hamadan, and Kerman-
shah, and from the British schools in southern Iran.
The education of these upper-class women is raising
the general standard of intelligence. Young women
are encouraged to become teachers as soon as they
graduate. The desire for learning has been infec-
tious.

When education is general and uniform, there will
be a constantly growing appreciation of ethical values
and standards. Women, by influencing public opin-
ion, are helping to achieve that, Increasingly the
tribal women come to Teheran to learn about their
country as a whole, and willingly accept the respon-
sibilities in their new world. The small-town and
village women are gaining new influence, for men
who formerly scoffed are listening for the first time
to what these have to say.

The newspapers now frequently contain what a
few years ago would have been a startling advertise-
ment: "Wanted-a lady typist." And numbers ap-
ply. A few are in shops as clerks. Many are in hat
and dress shops and in factories weaving sweaters,
hose, and woolen cloth. In the Government Uni-
versity several girls are studying pharmacy, dentistry,
and medicine. Several women have tentatively been
placed in the Department of Finance, and one is in
the National Baipl of Iran. What Teheran does is
eventually copied in the cities and towns.

THE UNVEILED WOMAN 311

In 1932 the Oriental Feminine Congress, presided
over by the Shah's older daughter, was held in Te-
herana gathering principally of Moslem women,
many from Egypt, Turkey, and India. The list of
their progressive decisions is testament to their vision
and common sense. The congress adopted the fol-
lowing resolutions:

1. The right of Oriental women to vote and, when quali-
fied, to be elected to offices.

2. Compulsory education for boys and girls.

3. Equal salaries to men and women in similar em-
ployment.

4. Educational training for grown women.

5. Kindergartens, playgrounds, and educational cinemas
should be arranged by the government.

6. The morals of men should be improved.

7. The health condition of a couple should be determined
before marriage.

8. Polygamy must be forbidden.

9. Alcoholic liquors and narcotics should be prohibited.
10. Feminine police should be organized to examine public

health and sanitary conditions.

When women meet from different countries, the
assembly is conducted in a manner to establish pri-
marily a basis of understanding, in order that each
may become acquainted, not only with the other's
needs, hopes, and opinions, but also with the political
handicaps which prevent all from making the same
demands, even when their desires are identical. For
example, at a meeting of the International Council
of Women in Chicago in 1934 a resolution regarding
each group of delegates working in its own country
toward world peace was not voted on because the rep-

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

resentatives from Japan and Germany had no author-
ity so to vote, and those from Rumania realized that
a militant Germany necessitated Rumania's keeping
in condition to defend herself. The congress realized
that there was no way to enforce a resolution, and so
did not bring it to a vote, but unquestionably every
woman went home determined to work as many
years as might be necessary to change public opinion,
and so produce psychological changes for which the
world has already waited far too long.

Races become acquainted best through their
women, whose interests are largely protective, where-
as men's are competitive. Women gain courage,
through group confidence, to stand up publicly for
their deepest racial desires. Men have built the
campfires while women have tended the hearths.
Today, with all Europe bursting into flames of war,
it is more than possible that enlightened women, in
their deep resolve to make the world a safe and
pleasant place for their children, will have, if not
a voice, at least a powerful influence in determining
whether or not Iran is to follow the ways of peace.

XIX
THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION

THERE are necessarily intellectual revolutions
in every home; old ways, old manners, old faiths,
are being abandoned as the younger members of the
family try to live according to the new pattern, to
act as though the old traditions, except devotion to
parents, had never existed.

For those who have grown saddened with life, the
outlook is not so cheerful. Mothers and grand-
mothers are aghast, many weep in secret, fearing
that breaking of the old customs and creeds of the
family will bring disaster on their children.

Formerly, when married at an average age of
twelve, a girl kissed the hand of her husband, then
touched it with her forehead, signifying that she
dedicated her body and her mind to him. He be-
came her protector. Early child-bearing and the
dulness of life made her old at twenty. Usually, by
the time she was thirty, she was neglected. Self-
support being impossible, she stayed on in the harem,
growing callous or resigned. Bewildered parents,
not knowing how to assist their children in their
adaptation to foreign ways, criticize those who easily
readjust themselves.

313

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

With the youth of every country rests its propel-
ling strength, its will to be, its fire and its future.
And yet up to the point at which children can take
their own direction into their own hands, the parents
of the generation before them must conscientiously
bring all their own education and experience to bear
upon the task of directing the children. But they
cannot instruct beyond the limits of their own hori-
zon. Over that horizon ambitious, eager youth will,
undoubtedly, see some newer vision, newer pain and
wisdom. At first instruction is vital, but the next
generation always coming up behind derives all
the benefits of maturity's knowledge, and from there
may go on without having to waste time in retread-
ing paths already worn, braving unknown seas al-
ready charted, making war upon an enemy whose
flag of truce has long been waving. Only the children
can carry forward the race with their stamina for
the tasks of the future, better able to cope with them
than we, because they carry the values of our ex-
perience in their wider quest for truth.

Education has preserved the forward course of
progress. Yet it is education with a difference. The
merely formal curriculum of history, literature,
botany, mathematics, etc., is not sufficient to make
men and women with capabilities to lead the world.
The essentials of character are formed by the seventh
year, those early years when the child is most at one
with his parents. But in Iran, as in other Islamic
countries, parents have been only meagerly aware
that in the infant the seeds of maturity exist. With
its birth, posterity and the continuance of the family

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 315

line are fulfilled. The child has been accepted as
a member of the household, and, if it be a son, there
is pride in its possession. He is fretted over with
nervous, elaborate attentions and becomes irritable,
partly because of the parents' attention, due to their
fears about safety and health; therefore, he does not
become self-reliant. Among the wealthy, the boys
are generally humored, deferred to, and encouraged
to be extremely selfish.

To feed and clothe the child was sufficient; the
legs would lengthen, the baby curves give place to
strong lines; he would become a man, she a woman.
For such was the will of Allah. If the child was quiet
and obedient and did not get sick, that was enough.
This indifferent training at home has been almost
all that children have received until recently. There
have never been any books written and illustrated
for children. Now, outdoor play with other children
in the new municipal playgrounds is a welcome in-
novation. Until the threat of brigands was removed
by action of the Shah, no child under fifteen years
was allowed to go outside the garden.

The Ministry of Education is doing a great deal to
organize sports and athletics. For the first time
young people are meeting one another in coopera-
tion and in competition which is stimulating their
minds and releasing their energy in a constructive
manner. All varieties of sport contests and calis-
thenics are being adopted. The Boy and Girl Scouts,
numbering together more than 15,000, are well or-
ganized; they participate in all national demonstra-
tions.

3 i6 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

A national Society for Physical Education has been
founded under the patronage o the Prince. This
is in truth a revival of interest, for before Moham-
medanism, the Iranians were fond of outdoor games.
Polo originated in Persia and was played there long
before it was adopted by the rest of the world.
Records show that the education of youth in the
time of Cyrus the Great consisted, in part, of learn-
ing "to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth/'

Child labor is as deep-rooted in Iran as elsewhere
in the Orient. Among poorer children the boys are
often apprenticed at five or six to some shopkeeper
or craftsman. The very fine carpets, as well as the
less expensive shah, are in large part the product of
child labor, since the fine weaving can be done only
by small fingers. Most of them work in underground
rooms at upright looms, sitting on six-inch-wide
planks which, as the carpet grows, are raised to a
considerable height. There is no foot rest, no back
rest. The hours of work are long in the unventi-
lated rooms; the children are badly paid and conse-
quently badly fed and clothed. Many have opium-
smoking parents who draw the children's wages in
advance, so that-well or illthe sad-eyed youngsters
must drag on at their work. As an inevitable conse-
quence, many child weavers become badly deformed
and are often stunted in growth. Rugs and carpets
are the chief industry in Iran, and thus the country
has in part been supported by the frail bodies of
children. Although there are as yet no actual laws
against child labor, it is being discouraged. Now
that children must go to school, there is no time for

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 317

money-making, and the practice will lessen gradu-
ally until such time as definite legislation is effected.

The care of babies and young children in the past
accounts in large part for the huge child mortality.
All babies were swaddled. Over their underclothes
there was a tight-fitting shirt and coat, a large sort
of bib, made of cotton or, if the parents were rich,
of silk. A gay little cap of velvet trimmed with gold
or silver was held on by a white triangle of cloth
which was ornamented with embroidery. Then the
infant was placed on a large square print, one corner
of which was turned in on a line with the shoulder,
another corner turned up over the feet. The arms
and legs were wound tightly in with the body. The
finished bundle was tied with tape or a strap. The
wrapping was so tight that a week-old baby could be
stood upright against a wall and stay there quite
alone, like the babies of Italy or an Indian papoose.

After its first bath the infant waited a long time
for another; the second was not given at home, but in
the public bath. Frequent baths and the exercise of
limbs were considered dangerous. This may explain
the average short stature of the people. From its
earliest days it was customary to give small doses of
sedative to soothe the child, sometimes opium.
Thousands were sent off to sleep by a few whiffs
blown into their faces, or by sucking the mother's
finger, under the nail of which was a tiny scrap of
opium. Usually after the first week the infant had
tea every day, without milk, but made sweet with
sugar candy to increase the nourishment. When a
little older, bread, cucumbers, and carrots were

3 i8 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

freely given to it. Sugar tied in a bit of muslin, not
always clean, was the ordinary "comforter." These
practices are not things of the past; 80 per cent of
them are usual today.

When a child is about two years old, and no longer
fed by its mother or nurse, it has a struggle to live.
Milk is not part of the diet. Among the poor, chil-
dren subsist on dry bread and boiled tea. Is it any
wonder that many of them give up the effort? There
are no stated mealtimes and no regular hour for
going to bed. The unfortunate children hang around
while their elders eat, chatter, and disregard them,
until utterly worn out their heavy lids close and
they fall asleep anywhere.

As a result of widespread information being re-
cently printed in the newspapers about the raising
of children, much more healthful practices are com-
ing into use. Knowledge of diet, the value of exer-
cise, rest, and proper clothing for children are
available for those mothers who are able to read and
profit by the advice. Nowadays the children of
educated families are frequently to be found romp-
ing happily in the garden of the home, even swim-
ming in the garden pool. Those who are progressive
and can afford it, send their children to a good
nursery school. There are none as yet for poorer
children, and toys are a rarity. For the most part
children lack animation and are serious little men
and women; they are seldom regarded as individuals.

Intellectually, Iran is a new frontier. Schools
have sprung into the air, and children are crowding
into them. It is significant that the hands of the

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 319

clock have begun to turn so rapidly, for the sole
means by which modernization can have any mean-
ing here is through general and up-to-date education.
Good schools with able teachers, developing in the
people capacities to appreciate their opportunities,
are far more vital to a recuperating empire than a
hundred generals riding down a boulevard.

In ancient Iran the Zoroastrian philosophy was
the nucleus of mental training and scholarship, and
for more than a thousand years was regarded as a
matter of the first importance to the welfare of the
State, Under the sway of Mohammedanism, educa-
tion became the monopoly of the Moslem priests,
and under them, for thirteen centuries, religion was
again the strongest element in education.

The curriculum of the first colleges, founded in
the eleventh century, remained under the control of
the priesthood until 1 85 1 . Besides these, there were
raa&tafcs elementary schools usually attached to
mosques. In these the boys sat on the floor and read
their lessons at the tops of their voices. They were
usually selections from the Arabic Koran which they
did not understand, because their own language was
Iranic, i.e., Farsi. Failure to make a sufficiently loud
noise was promptly corrected by a long, slender
switch in the hand of the schoolmaster. Sometimes
the dullard was obliged to lie on the floor on his back,
his feet lifted and supported on a rail, while the soles
of his feet were beaten. The boys learned some
strophes from the national poets. There were no
schools for girls; they were considered incapable of
being educated.

A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

When the Constitution was granted in 1906, much
of the agitation for it was directed by the religious
leaders, who saw to it that the Shiah tenets of Islam
were adopted as the official religion of the State.
These were followed by a provision stating, "The
acquisition and study of all science, arts, and crafts
is free to all save in the case of those to whom it is
forbidden by the ecclesiastical law/' This allowed
of wide interpretation; now it is changed to insure
freedom for all.

One of the most vital, able, and far-sighted men
in Persia is the Minister of Education, N. E. AH
Asghar Khan Hekmat. Under his supervision,
thousands of government schools are being built,
equipped, and immediately used throughout the
country. Under his ministry the country is divided
for educational purposes into provinces, each under
a director responsible to the ministry, whose powers
range from the establishing of new maktabs to the
control of archeological excavations. No longer do
officials sit behind big desks doing little work. On
the contrary, they now have scant leisure and modest
titles, the old, high-sounding ones having been laid
aside.

Statistics show that eleven times as many pupils
attended school in 1934 as in 1914, and the number
has vastly increased in the last five years. In 1934
the appropriations for education were seven times
as large as they were ten years earlier; then there
were only 250 private schools which received govern-
ment allowances and had government inspection.
Now there are more than 4000 modern schools; they

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 321

are not only in all cities and towns, but also in most
of the larger villages. Primary education is com-
pulsory. Instruction consists of a fairly thorough
groundwork in language, literature, arithmetic,
geography, history of Iran and of the world. Usually
either French or English is taught in the higher
grades. Elementary physical science is included in
the eighth and ninth years. With the opening of
many well-equipped colleges, secondary education
has greatly improved. Teachers' Colleges have been
established in connection with a higher Central In-
stitute in Teheran to provide better and more edu-
cators, of whom there were few ten years ago.

Article 8 of the Fundamental Law on Education,
passed in 1911, classified schools into private and
public, according to the source from which the in-
come is derived. The latter have only recently been
established. The private schools may be divided
into four classes: maktabs, religious colleges, national
schools, and foreign schools. The "national" are
often founded by Iranian individuals or private
communities instead of by the government. The
"foreign schools" are those created by American,
English, and French missionaries. The number of
these was reduced by forbidding foreigners to teach
in primary schools. The reason given was that it
would enable the government to prevent Soviet in-
fluence without invidious distinction and limit the
schools which had been established by Russians who
were suspect, although these claimed that schools
were only to educate the children of Russians tem-
porarily residing in Iran. Four small schools for

322 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

this purpose are still controlled by the Soviet Gov-
ernment. The maktabs and religious colleges are
still under the wing of Islam.

Another aspect o Iran's educational program
which bears the impress of French rather than British
tradition, is the insistence upon vocational as well
as scholarly education a wise principle in a country
seeking to equip men and women for specific posi-
tions in economic life.

With training in the duties of citizenship is linked
compulsory military service. This, in a country
where the people have always been highly individual-
istic, has been one of the most useful social reforms.
Aristocrats as well as middle-class young men are
thus being trained together in national history, math-
ematics, social ethics, along with the discipline,
science, and duties of war. They learn together how
to govern and to cooperate in being governed. Mili-
tary tactics discipline their minds and bodies. In
military schools tens of thousands of young men are
educated every year.

It is the dream of the Shah and his ministers to
give compulsory free education to all youth; but as
yet compulsory attendance cannot be enforced. Only
10 per cent of the total child population of the
country districts now attend school, although in the
towns the figures run more hopefullyfrom 25 to 50
per cent. Admission to the elementary schools is
free, except in some of the large cities. Usually a
small fee is required in the higher grade of schools.

The difficulty of opening new schools in suitable
buildings, with competent teachers, books, and

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 323

equipmentall supported by the national treasury-
Is great. Those in Teheran are the most modern and
have the largest enrollment. Issa Khan Sadiq, Presi-
dent of the State Teachers' College and Dean of the
new University, has published an excellent book,
Modern Persia and Her Educational System, in
which he summarizes the aims of today: "Education
must create national solidarity through appreciation
, of the common culture, the spiritual heritage, and
capital of the nation's past. It must train youth to
collect facts, to analyze problems, and to think inde-
pendently." His program is well arranged:

1. To train boys and girls to become good citizens, under-
standing and sharing in the ideals of the nation.

2. To train them to become worthy parents of the coming
generation, upon whom rests the future of the nation.

3. To teach by precept and by example that God extends
his blessings to those who have good thoughts, good
words, and good deeds, which are the basis of righteous-
ness and tolerance.

4. To teach the rural people and the tribes how to live, how
to make a home, furnish it, prepare food and clothing,
prevent diseases and acquire health habits.

5. In secondary schools, as well as in the university, to train
youth in leadership and service to the State. To give to
others a vision of Iran's place in the world, past and
present,, with the ideal of instilling pride in preparing
to lead the country in culture, science, technology, busi-
ness, statesmanship, and government.

6. In special schools, those who prove their skill, to be
trained for vocational efficiency and given a sense of their
responsibility.

7. To promote and place stress upon health and healthful
sports in all schools.

3 24 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

8. Finally, to train youths in the intelligent use of their
leisure time and in esthetic activities. These are not left
vague, but outlined as: painting, singing, music, dra-
matics and plays; as social activities, parties, receptions,
competitive games, clubs; as pleasure in reading, intel-
lectual investigation, and other constructive activities.

The Shah apparently realizes that education is
tested by its adaptability to the end in view. He
means to have education overtake, capture, and de-
stroy illiteracy.

So great is the progress made over the mumbling
old method o memorizing the Koran in chorus,
learning platitudes to the accompaniment of sway-
ing bodies, that at present there is in towns up-to-
date education of at least a fourth of the children of
elementary school age. However, a few of the old
type are left and give a quaint touch to small vil-
lages through which I motored or walked. Occa-
sionally I heard droning, monotonous voices issuing
from an open-walled school where, sitting on the
floor, the children were impressing on their minds by
repetition the phrases which were to guide their
lives. The priest-teacher's long stick, called "the
instructor/' was always in readiness to touch those
who fell asleep.

"Montessori" and kindergarten methods develop-
ing initiative, competition, originality of outlook
are, however, just around the corner. Out from this
children's world will come the progressive original
thinkers, dreaded by the priests, but necessary to
meet the minds of children in other lands when,
later, they will together break down the mental fron-

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 325

tiers which have so long hampered world progress.

Alborz College, the American College of Teheran,
ranks with the best American colleges. Under the
vital leadership of its president, Dr. S. M. Jordan,
it has cooperated with the government in every way.
The campus, overlooking the entire capital, com-
prises a handsome group of buildings in which it
can accommodate 700 students. Rollestone Hall
and the well-equipped Science Building combine
American ideas of seating, ventilation, heating, and
efficiency with Iranian architectural grace and
beauty. They are considered excellent examples of
Iran-Saracenic architecture. There are also an in-
firmary, dormitories, three football and three basket-
ball fields, three volley-ball and six tennis courts, a
baseball diamond and a running track. The lecture
rooms, central auditorium and laboratories are large
and airy,

Mr. Farhudi, chief inspector under the Minister
of Education, in speaking for the development of
athletics, expressed much appreciation of the Amer-
ican schools "for paving the way and for laying solid
foundations in this line for the expansion of educa-
tion for both boys and girls."

Different races and religions have long had sep-
arate schools, but in the Alborz College, Moslems,
Zoroastrians, Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews have
all been enrolled. They have sat beside one another
in classrooms and rubbed shoulders on football fields;
the result is that all have learned to be friends and
are equally enthusiastic to serve their common coun-
try. This synthesis of religions, together with a

326 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

growing spirit of democracy, is an important step
in the enhancement of national consciousness.

English and American colleges have made new
mental paths and introduced the adventure of mov-
ing toward a new horizon. The schools established
by missions have also been an important factor in
nationalized education, for thfe majority of teachers
now in the government schools are graduates of mis-
sion schools, which introduced the advanced educa-
tional methods of the West. They have opened the
minds of men and women to appreciate and accept
the Shah's reforms, while men educated in these
schools have been among his most cooperative and
progressive leaders.

American educators in Iran are fortunate in seeing
the results of their eiforts. It is only just to say that
missionary education of girls led up to the govern-
ment education of women through their initial
efforts to remove prejudice and apprehension con-
cerning it

Missionaries* wives assist in forwarding educa-
tional work by constructive, personal coaching and
tutoring conferences. They assist graduates in the
development of their individual capacities, so that
when they are appointed as teachers in government
schools they most ably cooperate with the Minister
of Education.

Three thousand years ago Iran's culture led the
world and influenced all Asia. Centuries passed and
much of Africa and Europe felt the stimulus of in-
creasing knowledge which had had its origin in Iran.
There were periods of flowering and fading and,

THE ADVENTURE OF EDUCATION 327

through all the changes, in some ways the present
days of harvest were approaching; even when they
seemed to be receding, they were germinating, not
dying. Today the educated Irani speak foreign lan-
guages without foreign accents. They move about
in their mental house with the ease of a son who has
traveled far and come back to his ancestral home
where, amid objects totally different from those he
formerly knew there, he still finds those that are
familiar.

The American Presbyterian School for Girls in
Teheran, now called Nurbakhsh, "Light Giving/' to
a great extent broke down the prejudices against the
education of women and opened the way to their
emancipation. At first these schools were attended
only by Armenian girls, but gradually suspicion and
distrust were overcome and Moslem girls also entered
the school. In 1911 women for the first time held a
large meeting in Teheran to discuss the problems of
education. Now all the government and private
schools for girls are crowded to more than capacity.
Emancipation, no matter how loud the pleadings or
protests from behind the veils, could never have come
to women if men had not realized the need of it.
They had to understand that in building the nation
it was necessary to have the educated women's work
and influence. A member of the Mejlis said to me:
"There is nothing more important to our future
welfare than the education of our girls; the hope of
our country is in them, for, until the mothers are
educated, we shall never have true statesmen/ 1

The adventures of education are endless in open-

328 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

ing a knowledge of other countries' history, litera-
ture and methods; in stimulating a desire to travel
by land and sea, and in learning of the great achieve-
ments in all the sciences. But the great sociological
adventure is in education's power to change civiliza-
tions. It is dramatic to realize that when an ancient
privileged class, such as the barons of England, edu-
cated the peasantry, they little realized that eventu-
ally these underlings would become their competi-
tors, and thus force them to prove that there are
values of birth and breeding which in themselves are
national assets. Special privileges are already be-
coming ancient history.

XX

THE FUTURE EAST AND WEST

WHAT of Iran's future? No one can say what
the future of any country will be. Judging,
however, from its aspirations, qualifications, and ca-
pacities for success, as well as its weaknesses, and
remembering its achievements in the past, we may
draw conclusions which will help us to conjecture
how its future is likely to develop.

Every force in Iran is vibrant in this time o great
changes. Here is new strength, new power and
achievement, just when it is most needed to offset
the destructive trend of her European neighbors.
Iran has faith in herself. Her eager acceptance of
scientific advance in all its lines and her elimination
of ancient drawbacks, convince the observer that her
ambition sets before her the stimulation of attaining
each year a more constructive policy, leading to in-
creasing opportunities in all forms of human better-
ment.

They look without our anxiety on the nations
which arrogantly prepare for war. They philoso-
phize that, if war-minded dictators force the helpless
people into war, the results will be a loss of most of
their fruits of progress. The nationalism of Iran,
meanwhile, prepares itself for prolonged peace,

329

330 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

working constructively and striving toward inter-
national understanding. She is using the same ma-
terials and the same ideals which our forefathers
used to build America. Fortunately, Iran is suffi-
ciently isolated and free from possessions which
arouse covetousness to work out her destiny without
interference; newspaper headlines and radio news
do not make her tremble.

The Iranian Minister to London, H. E. Hussein
Khan Ali, has said: "We seek no adventures; we
desire to devote our whole attention to the regenera-
tion and development of a country that has long re-
mained backward and is now making rapid strides
to catch up with the caravan of progress. In short,
we want to be useful, industrious, and peaceful mem-
bers of the society of nations/'

The future of Iran was in a measure predicted by
a man who said: "The only sound basis for the wel-
fare of people is consideration of the mental, emo-
tional, and spiritual aspects of each nation in relation
to its economical, political, and ethical state. There
can be no peace as long as aggressiveness destroys
human justice. The wishes and rights of all men are
the same and focus in a document which says all are
entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness/ "

Christian thought has given to the world belief in
the possibility of progress. It has given humanity
affirmative ethics as to the perfectibility of man
through knowledge of himself and of the world in
which he must live. It has indicated that he may
find happiness through self-improvement. We have,

THE FUTURE EAST AND WEST 331

perhaps, interpreted progress as meaning comfort
rather than happiness.

Spiritually quiescent, politically turbulent for
centuries, under Moslem rulers who were unfriendly
and contemptuous to foreigners, Iran in its geo-
graphical aloofness was also mentally aloof from the
forward march of Europe. But now, over her moun-
tain frontiers and from her high desert plateau, she
turns her gaze toward that Europe, toward England
and America, for new stimuli in order to discover
how and why she has fallen so awkwardly out of
step with the progress of the world. Such progress,
however, cannot come by observing and copying
Paris, London, or New York; it will be built upon
Iran's own ideals, her own emotional needs. This
is the task of nationalism, a serious but inspiring one.

We have already seen how subjection to the greed
and avarice of foreign Christian nations brought
about Iran's desire for strength for herself, modeled
on .lines comparable to that of those very powers,
that she might be able definitely to restrict their
further deleterious influence within the country.
Kipling said the West cannot "hustle" the East. Iran
proves that the East has hustled itself for protection
from the wrongs of the West, and will hustle itself
again if it believes that the "benefits" from the West
will reward its effort.

The gift of the West is knowledge; the gift of the
East is wisdom. An Easternizing of the West, along
with a Westernizing of the East, might well lead us
on the way to attaining an international world. Iran's
survival gives food for thought: Shall we of the West

33 2 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

live three thousand years as they have done? In the
establishment of America, expenditure of energy
was necessary. There were floods, devastation of
earthquakes, forest fires, Indians, blizzards, and
famine to overcome. Always the lure of conquering
untamed nature and the rewards. Through the
heritage of energy from ancestors who left their
countries in quest of conditions which they believed
would eventually be better for themselves and their
children, we have developed a race which is always
looking forward.

If pioneers found life uncongenial in Missouri,
they could pack up and move on to Kansas; and if
things were disappointing there, Colorado was ahead.
There was adventurous ambition always believing
in its own energy to make things better. That kept
horizons opening. A fortune and opportunity lay
just across the prairie, or over the mountain range.
With this movement, this suddenness of success or
failure, this constant chance to make a fresh start,
Americans developed self-reliance, productive imag-
ination, ability to become inventors, athletes; to
create soaring skylines, and opportunities for every
man, woman, and child.

The climate in most of the states necessitated con-
stant work in the early days, both summer and win-
ter, in order that families might maintain themselves.
Only recently have we ceased to regard indulging in
leisure as an evidence of laziness. We have expected
each person to add a just proportion in one form or
another to the material welfare of the village or the
nation. Our society rests on energetic traditions,

THE FUTURE EAST AND WEST 333

but now that the time and minds of men and women
are freed from drudgery by labor-saving inventions
and organization in home and business, we may
learn much from Iran. Kindness and hospitality
are in both lands, but we have not had grace in
meditative and artistic pursuits nor appreciated the
values of exquisite refinement in ordinary behavior.

It is in spiritual vision that the brilliant hope of
Iran's future lies; unconsciously she teaches us our
mistakes in pursuing progress. For, whether rich or
poor, Iranians have always held themselves above
material wants and been content to enjoy the sim-
plicities of life; they have not been cursed with a
desire for possessions. Their sensibility, their joy,
and their dignity are independent of material cir-
cumstance.

On the other hand, in science, industry, inven-
tion, medicine, in social planning, in political de-
mocracy, America has given instruction and benefits
to the world. Some otherwise intelligent Europeans
who have come across the Atlantic with a desire to
be hypercritical have spent a week or two in New
York and written satirical articles reflecting their
own superficial observations; but an Iranian student
who had spent four years here said to me, "I like
your country's buoyancy and faith; they have helped
to make the earth a happier planet by emphasizing
humanities, the human and healthful values which
underlie equity for all, freedom for growth, and ap-
preciation of accomplishment which is based on
individual initiative. These are qualities Iran needs,

334 A DOCTOR'S HOLIDAY IN IRAN

and we are determined to make our enthusiasm re-
sult in a like efficiency/*

Where America is abrupt and new, Iran, like other
Asiatic countries, has its social roots deep in the
earth of human nature and experience. It is obvious
that the Iranian spirit and character have individu-
ality and worth. They are a lovable people. Their
sense of quiet enjoyment, their stern endurance and
courage, their quick intelligence and wit, their
pacifism and sociability these are all things to
heighten one's respect. Their habits of mind, con-
firmed and continued through the centuries, have
given to their society a graciousness of living and a
deep understanding of spiritual values.

All religions and systems of ethics have come out
of the East. The traditions of their social organiza-
tion are of a civilization which has led to the spon-
taneous flowering of art and literature. A combina-
tion of the Eastern and Western approaches to life
should bring the fullest manifestation of human bal-
ances. With the objectivity of our triumph over the
world of nature in reason and science, may be com-
bined their more contemplative imaginative under-
standing of the human soul. No traveler can escape
feeling the greatness of Iran; it is buried in her soil,
it glows in her palaces and mosques, it echoes from
the mountain peaks, it burns in the eyes of the
people. Every traveler must be impressed by her
new ideals and intentions, her toil for those ideals,
and the greater life she is yet to enjoy.

The blending of East and West in Iran is inspir-
ing. What she receives from the outside, as so often

THE -FUTURE EAST AND WEST 335

she has done before, she Is stamping with her own
personality. The influence of this empire has been
tremendous in the past. May it not now be the be-
ginning and the hope of our next stage of evolution?
Iran is a reborn nation, with a magnificent future
awaiting her in which her ancient racial intelligence
and imagination will still find keen expression, in
modern terms. Meanwhile, this hour of metamor-
phosis is an exciting time.

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