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Show - 4 - routine work of the hospital. The nurses were constantly working at high tension, for we had more than twice as many patients in the hospital as usual, many of them very ill, and four times the usual number in the out-patient department. Towards the last Dr. Lin, of the army medical corps, and Mr. Hu, a pharmacist, were detailed to help us in the out-patient department. One afternoon Dr. Lin asked Dr. Hsu and me to go to see the colonel of the body-guard regiment about two soldiers who had deserted and been apprehended. The point was that if such wrell known men as we asked the colonel to exercise leniency he would not be able to refuse! We went to see him and the men were not shot. Two days later we had to admit the deserters as free patients, for they had been terribly beaten across the backs of their thighs and discharged from the army. Of course they came to us for care. One of them stayed over a month before he recovered. In our talk with the colonel we touched on the matter of the typhoid epidemic and it was arranged that we should speak to the men. The next afternoon the whole regiment was drawn up in the hospital yard, and Dr. Hsu delivered a lecture on the methods of contagion of typhoid fever, dysentery and cholera, illustrated by large charts, emphasizing the dangers of flies. It was an impressive event, a regiment of Chinese Revolutionary troops, at attention, while Dr. Hsu, in his long white coat, addressed them on a subject of modern public health. After a six weeks stay, during which we had very pleasant contacts with the generals, the Headquarters moved to Paoting-fu and we felt as if we had nothing to do, with once more less than two dozen men in-patients. We still had quite a number of Feng's soldiers and a large military out-patient department of that army corps, but it was a great change. A month later General Sun, of Feng's army, moved into the compound, and his men furnished a great deal of work for us. By this time our northern soldiers had all been discharged, and it was possible to allot vacation periods for the staff. Even now there are a number of military in-patients and fifty or so out-patients every day. During all this time the famine in the vicinity of Lintsing was becoming more severe. We were taking in many free civilian patients who suffered from one and another remediable condition. For instance, a man can be changed from a beggar into a working man by curing an eye condition. Those who had no complaint except hunger could not be cared for in a crowded |