Page 30 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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the schools v/ere now large, crowded to capacity with a regu­

lar attendance of hoys and girls of all ages eager for know­

ledge. The Arabian Mission had indeed come of age.

At the beginning of the First World War, only two of

the Mission’s medical outposts were housed in proper hospitals.
The Mason Memorial Hospital in Bahrain had been the first hos­

pital ever to be constructed in the Gulf when it was completed

in 1902.37 Nine years later the Mission completed the Lansing

Memorial Hospital in Basrah0 Meanwhile, Dr. C.S.G. Mylrea

had started work on a new men’s hospital in Kuwait, to be

built out of steel and Portland cement - strange and wonder­

ful building materials for the Gulf Arabs at that time. The

Kuwait hospital was completed in 1915.^ Pour years later,

the Kuwait mission opened a women’s hospital.4°In Bahrain,

the Mission had opened a women’s dispensary in 1924 and

started construction on a women’s hospital to supplement the

Mason Memorial Hospital. In 1926 it was completed, and with

much celebration the Marion Wells Thoms Memorial Women’s

Hospital opened its doors to the throngs of waiting Bahraini

women. In Basrah, the mission hospital had started to receive

some competition from the new British administration, which

had constructed its own military hospital in 1920. By 1926,

the Mission had decided to close down its medical program in

Basrah and to relocate the Lansing Memorial Hospital in

Amarah, 150 miles further inland, upt.the Tigris river. The

boys’ school remained in Basrah and the Mission moved its

medical staff to a new facility in their former small out-