TURKO-ARMENIAN RELIEF

ByG. Bie Ravndal,American Consul-General, Chairman.

Beirut, Syria, June 5, 1909.

Your Committee desires to express its profound appreciation of its recognition by the American National Red Cross as the latter’s authorized agents in the matter of extending relief to the sick and destitute of Asia Minor and Syria in consequence of recent bloody disorders.

Such recognition strengthened our appeals for aid. It implied a thorough audit of accounts, and also that distribution to the needy would be made, irrespective of race or creed.

As Americans we have wished that credit for whatever we might be able to accomplish along the lines of alleviating suffering and destitution should be given to the American National Red Cross. For this reason, as well as for purposes of protection, we have displayed the Red Cross flag in the field as well as at our headquarters in Beirut, and we have also marked supplies as shipped by us to various local relief agents with the Red Cross insignia.

Commercially and otherwise, the stricken districts form part of Beirut’s tributary territory. This city, therefore, is especially suitable as a point of distribution of relief supplies in the present emergency. Your Committee, accordingly, was able to and did reach Adana and other afflicted points before any other relief agency. As soon as other instrumentalities had been provided for the Adana region, your Committee concentrated its efforts upon the less favored districts of Alexandretta, Latakia, Kessab, Antioch, and Marash.

We take pleasure in inclosing herewith a synopsis of the report of Prof. Harry Gaylord Dorman, M. D., of Beirut, who, while there, was called upon to superintend the entire medical relief work. Some of Dr. Dorman’s photographs show the Red Cross well to the front in Adana. We are grateful to the authorities of the Syrian Protestant College for granting Dr. Dorman the leave of absence required for the purpose indicated.

Inclosed financial statements, prepared by E. G. Freyer, Esq., our Secretary and Treasurer, who, as the executive member of your Committee, has displayed the most commendable zeal and tireless activity, explains the Committee’s operations up to the present time. Fuller accounts of the manner in which our cash remittances to Alexandretta, Marash, and Antioch were used will accompany our final and detailed settlement with the American National Red Cross. In every instance we have availed ourselves of the services of American, British, and German missionaries in the field, individually known to and fully trusted by your Committee, as distributing agents. Most of them “went through” the massacres of 1895, and thus acquired experience in relief work. Among such field agents we would especially mention Rev. Chambers, at Adana; Rev. Dodds, at Mersine; Rev. Kennedy, at Alexandretta; Dr. Balph, at Latakia; Rev. Maccallum, at Marash, and Rev. Trowbridge, at large, as having rendered valuable assistance.

While this is only the American Relief Committee at work, we are fully aware of the important services rendered by the International Committee at Adana, of which the British Vice-Consul, Major Doughty-Wylie, is chairman; Rev. W. N. Chambers (American), Secretary, and the Imperial Ottoman Bank (French), Treasurer. The latest letter received from Rev. Mr. Chambers, of Adana, shows that the relief work at that point still remains at its initialstage (feeding the hungry and nursing the wounded), and that fresh relief measures are imperatively required.

Rev. T. D. Christie, D. D., President of St. Paul’s College Institute (American), at Tarsus, under the date of May 29, 1909, indorses an “Appeal for Help to Cilicia,” issued by an Armenian Bishop, in the following language:

RED CROSS HEADQUARTERS, BEIRUT.

“The above is not mere rhetoric; it understates rather than overstates the case. The needy refugees in these two Provinces of Adana and Aleppo now number about seventy thousand; the value of the property looted or destroyed is fifty million dollars. I trust there will be a generous response to this cry for help. Something is already being done, for which the men and women onthe ground are most grateful; but much more must be done if disaster is to be averted.”

Your Committee is not prepared to confirm any specific estimate of the number of destitute refugees. While in some places the devastation is complete, in other places the crops are left and may yet be saved. We do know, however, that the general situation in the stricken belt is extremely pitiable, and that we are perfectly justified in calling upon the American public for further help.

A SHIPMENT OF SUPPLIES LEAVING RED CROSS HEADQUARTERS AT BEIRUT FOR LATAKIA.

In the case of Kessab, we have supplied some mechanic’s tools and agricultural implements as the best means of obviating the necessity of issuing rations indefinitely. This policy will be pursued in other villages which werelooted and destroyed, and where the inhabitants are utterly destitute. Photographs show the steamer which carried our fairly large shipment for Kessab, and boxes composing the shipment. The steamer (Italian) flew the Red Cross flag in honor of the occasion.

Your Committee is deeply grateful for the opportunity of doing this kind of work under the inspiring auspices of the American National Red Cross, and would assure you that we constantly have in mind performing our task in such a manner as not to lower the high standard of efficiency and fidelity to duty set by your noble organization.

In continuation of my report of June 14, 1909, I have the honor to submit the following further observations:

To begin with, the most pressing need called for food and medical aid. We, therefore, sent doctors and nurses and medical supplies to Adana and provisions, or cash wherewith to buy food, to various stricken centers, such as Adana, Tarsus, Alexandretta, Kessab, Antioch, and Marash. Kessab we also supplied with implements and tools of various kinds, as the village was utterly looted before being destroyed, and practically nothing but ruins was left of it. At Aintab and Beirut we have provided clothing, shoes, and bedding for some destitute orphans.

RED CROSS SUPPLIES, INCLUDING PLOWS, PICKS AND OTHER TOOLS, BEING TAKEN TO THE STEAMER SAILING FOR KESSAB.

Fortunately, in many districts the crops were saved. The food problem, except at certain points, including Kessab, which is not an agricultural village, will therefore be deprived of its worst terrors until the winter sets in. There has been and still is a general demand for clothing, quilts, and blankets, especiallyfrom the mountainous regions between Latakia and Marash. We shall hear more about the need of clothing and bedding and shelter as the season advances and the cold November rains begin beating down upon the mountains. Kitchen utensils are urgently wanted in many districts in which the marauders carried off everything portable.

But while the initial and most palpable suffering and destitution may be said to have been provisionally checked, and while preliminary steps are being discussed with a view to establishing orphanages and asylums for the fatherless and factories in which to give the widows employment, we feel that the real pinch is yet to come. After careful investigation, we are satisfied that relief on an extensive scale will have to be furnished for months to come, and that the coming winter will to the utmost tax the capacity of all the relief agencies at work, even if the funds at their disposal are very materially increased beyond the present ratio of contribution.

ITALIAN S. S. “ORIONE” FLYING RED CROSS FLAG, LEAVING BEIRUT FOR LATAKIA.

Confronted with so many unsolved problems of relief and of rehabilitation and feeling that some 25,000 destitute fellow-beings in the district between Marash and Latakia are looking toward this Committee for help, both for the present and during the approaching season of inclement weather, we are in duty bound to persevere.

As late as July 8, Rev. Kennedy reported from Alexandretta:

“Nothing has been done in the district so far to reinstate the refugees in their homes. They have been ordered back to their villages repeatedly, and even threatened if they did not obey, but they say they can not go back as long as they have no houses to return to. What the outcome will be I can not predict. To rebuild 746 houses, even though many of them are little better than huts, is no small thing.”

TENTS FURNISHED THROUGH THE RED CROSS RELIEF COMMITTEE FOR ADANA.

THIRTY-FOUR ORPHAN GIRLS FROM ANTIOCH BROUGHT TO BEIRUT UNDER RED CROSS AUSPICES FOR THE GERMAN DEACONESSES OF KAISERSWERTH. BEDS, BLANKETS, SHOES AND CLOTHING WERE SUPPLIED.

On July 3 this Committee received an appeal from Miss E. Chambers at Kessab for $500 for shoes, $250 for cotton cloth, and $5,000 for wheat, while urgent requests were made for money with which to rebuild houses. More than600 houses in Kessab had been ruined by fire and other means of destruction. We have supplied the money necessary to buy the shoes and the cloth, but we are unable as yet to provide winter stores or to assist in rehousing the people.

Regarding the matter of contributions, I would invite attention to the report of July 12 of the Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. E. G. Freyer, inclosed herewith. Your Committee’s first call for aid met with a surprisingly generous response from Syria, enabling us to be the first on the scene of devastation with help from the outside. The contributions were not large, but they came in promptly, and as shown by the financial statement of June 24, from numerous sources.

In the matter of distribution, this Committee has exercised very special care. We have dealt exclusively with American, British, and German missionaries in the field, men and women personally known to ourselves, and in whose trustworthiness and good judgment we had implicit confidence. We have full assurance that the supplies and the cash forwarded have been employed where they would accomplish the greatest amount of good. In that way the piasters or piasters’ worth furnished have been made to serve important ends. We, therefore, feel that we have not striven in vain, although the summary of receipts and expenditures does not run into very large figures.

The number of killed during the recent disturbances is variously estimated at 15,000 to 30,000, leaving thousands of widows and orphans. Business practically is at a standstill in the disturbed region. Hundreds of families wish to emigrate, and some have applied to American consuls for assistance to that end. It is a sad state of affairs. But emigration on a large scale at this time, when brighter days obviously are dawning upon this empire, unquestionably would be both a mistake and a misfortune.

Everywhere the Red Cross has been respected and honored, although the emblem of official relief work in Turkey is the red crescent.

Your Committee considers it a special and precious privilege to be permitted to help so many of these afflicted people under the inspiring auspices of the American National Red Cross. We once more appeal for further funds.

The Adana massacre was in two sections, the first massacre lasting from the morning of Wednesday, April 14, for three days, until Friday afternoon, April 16; the second followed after an interval of eight days, and lasted for two days, Sunday and Monday, April 25 and 26. The second massacre was followed by occasional killing of Armenians for five or six days more.

The feature of the first day was the plundering of the shops in the Armenian quarter by the Moslem mob. There was much shooting in the city, and some killing on both sides.

Thursday the shooting and killing was continued with more violence. The resistance of the Armenians in the Armenian section of the city was, to a certain extent, successful in preventing the pillaging of a large part of the Armenian quarter. But in the suburbs, where the Christian houses stood isolated, in their little vineyards or gardens the mob and pillaging soldiers had full play. Houses were entered, their inhabitants shot regardless of sex or age, and then, after having been plundered, the buildings were set on fire. On this Thursday afternoon the first assistance to the wounded was given by Mrs. Doughty-Wylie, the wife of Major C. H. M. Doughty-Wylie, British Consul at Mersine. These two had come up on the last regular train fromMersine the previous day because of the report of trouble at Adana. However much of credit may have been, and rightly, given to the Major for a heroism and courage in these days of terror that was the means of saving the lives of thousands, his wife is no less deserving of credit for a brave and tireless devotion to the needs of the wounded, which has done much to mitigate the suffering that followed these awful massacres. To this work she brought not only a love for the details of nursing, but a genius for organization as well, and a training that prepared her in a peculiar way to fill the need. She had seen service as army nurse in the Boer war, and for six years she personally supported and conducted a hospital in Bombay, where she has nursed through famine and through plague. It surely was a special Providence that brought these two to Adana at such a time.

RUINS IN ADANA.

Thursday afternoon it was reported at the Consulate that nine wounded women and children from the ruined houses of the adjoining suburb had been brought into the Turkish guard house near the Consulate. A message to the guard house to ask if medical help could be given was answered by the curt reply that no assistance was needed as all would be dead by morning. There was firing on the street and murder abroad, but Mrs. Doughty-Wylie, taking with her a Greek woman and Dr. Danielides, who had taken refuge at the Consulate, went over to the guard house. The nine wounded were on the floor of a small room, lying in pools of blood. In an adjoining room were two wounded soldiers, one with a broken leg and one with a flesh wound. After a trip back to the Consulate for dressings, Mrs. Doughty-Wylie and the doctor dressed the wounds, caring first for the wounded soldiers. The women and children were then brought over and placed in a woodshed adjoining the Consulate, while the soldiers were left to the care of the proper military authorities. This formed the nucleus of the hospital relief work. There might have been ten instead of nine in this nucleus but for the fact that even while Mrs. Doughty-Wylie was at work in the guard house a wounded Armenian seeking its protection was stabbed to death by the bayonets of the soldiers in full viewof the English Consulate. Of the nine, two died of peritonitis in the course of a few days; two were discharged cured within two weeks, and others were convalescing in the hospital five weeks later.

A tenth was added to the list of wounded in the Consulate that afternoon by the wounding of Major Doughty-Wylie in the right forearm, who, in the role of peacemaker, was frequently between the fire of the contending parties.

Friday morning, about nine o’clock, the bugles sounded the call to cease firing, and the first massacre ceased. Some four or five wounded men were brought into the British Consulate, and the little hospital overflowed into an adjoining Armenian house, where the patients lay in a little dark room with a mud floor.

On Monday a better house was engaged from a Greek. Here were four small rooms and a broad veranda, which for three weeks did service for surgical dressing room and operating room. The hospital was established with fifteen inpatients and a number of outpatients, who came for dressings. Dr. Danielides left in the middle of the week, and the work was carried on by Mrs. Doughty-Wylie, assisted by Miss Alltree and Miss Sinclair (English), and Miss Avania (Greek), until the arrival of Sick Bay Stewart Shenton and five first aid marines from the British cruiserSwiftsure. These came on Saturday, eight days after the end of the first massacre, and with a reinforcement of four more marines two days later they did thorough and efficient work until they were relieved after three weeks by a similar crew of men under Sick Bay Stewart Weiber from H. M. S.Minerva. The work of these men, and especially of Mr. Shenton, in caring for the wounded and in the daily dressing of what, after the second massacre, amounted to some 200 suppurating wounds, is deserving of the highest praise.

RUINS IN ADANA.

In the interval of eight days that elapsed between the first and second massacres, confidence had begun to be gradually restored. The woundedwere gathered in several places and cared for by Armenian doctors under the supervision of foreigners. Many of the wounds had gone four days without being dressed and were in bad condition.

On Monday, April 9, three days after the end of the first massacre, work began to be organized, as follows:

Under the care of Miss Wallis, in the upper Gregorian Church, 60 wounded women and children, and in the Protestant Boys’ School, 15 wounded men, together with over 15 outpatients.

Under the care of Miss E. S. Webb, in the Armenian Girls’ School, and in the lower Gregorian Church adjoining, over 40 wounded, besides 30 sick.

Under the care of the Soeurs de Charite de Ste. Leon, in a large Armenian house, 25 wounded, besides 130 outpatients.

RED CROSS HOSPITAL (SURGICAL) IN CHARGE OF MRS. DOUGHTY-WYLIE. IN SIMEONIDES’ HOUSE.

There were also about a dozen wounded in the Turkish School, and among the 2,000 or so refugees in the New Market Armenian Boys’ School there were 50 sick.

In all there were 330 wounded Armenians under treatment, of whom about half were able to come and go for their dressings. Besides this, there were some 100 sick among the crowded refugees. The small proportion of wounded relative to the total number of Armenians killed in the city during the first massacre—a number estimated at 2,500—is indicative of the vindictiveness of the killing. The chance of escape was small for a man, woman, or child once disabled by a wound.

Wounded Moslems were cared for in the government charity hospital outside the city. There were about 50 inpatients, among whom were said to be a few Christians, and about 150 outpatients. In the Turkish Military Hospital there were also about 40 wounded. From 50 to 60 other woundedMoslems were cared for in their homes. The number of Moslems killed is unknown, but is said to have been 200, more or less.

AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL (MEDICAL) ADANA.

On Sunday, April 25, the aspect of the medical relief work was abruptly changed by the occurrence of the second massacre. This began at 4 in the afternoon, with a determined fusillade on the New Market Armenian School, accompanied by the firing of the building, and followed by the massacre of most of its 2,000 or more helpless refugees as they sought to escape from the death trap. Carts piled high with bodies were busy for the next three days emptying the school playground of its dead. The acute stage of incendiarism and killing lasted only until the following night, Monday, April 26, but frequent fires and the shooting of stray Armenians continued for a week after. This massacre differed from the first in the absence of any effectual resistance on the part of the Armenians, the prominent participation of the soldiers in the killing, and in that it ended with the complete destruction by fire of the Armenian section of the town, representing something over one-fourth of the city’s area. It seems also to have been characterized by a peculiarly relentless cruelty; sick and wounded men, women, and children fell alike before the shots and bayonets of the pitiless soldiery. The 2,500 who are roughly estimated to have been killed in this second massacre are, for the most part, victims of the Armenian School massacre, together with those who were killed the same afternoon in the lower Gregorian Church and adjoining girls’ school. Of the 70 sick and wounded among the refugees here, most were either killed or burned. The hospital of the French Sisters was burned at the same time. Some of the patients were burned with it, but some were saved by two of the Jesuit Fathers, who carried as many as they could over to the Church of the Jesuit Boys’ School. Even this proved for them an uncertain refuge, for the following day the buildings of the Jesuit School were burned, and its refugees, together with the Jesuit Fathers themselves, were saved from the blood-thirstymob only by the timely intervention of Major Doughty-Wylie. In spite of his fractured arm, he had a guard from the Vali, and rode about in the endeavor to save life and restore order.

Monday morning, April 26, it was announced that government protection would be afforded only to those Armenians who should present themselves at the Konak or government house. So through the day refugees by the thousand, among them the sick and wounded, fled to the open space in front of the Konak, until the Armenian quarter was deserted. Many were escorted there by Major Doughty-Wylie with a guard of soldiers. Here they stood waiting helplessly, without food, for many hours. The women and children were commanded to stand apart from the men, and all were subjected to a thorough search for arms or valuables. Toward evening they were told to go, but no provision was made for their going. Like a herd of frightened sheep, turning back here and there as some new terror faced them, with a number trampled to death at every fresh panic, husbands separated from wives, and children separated from parents, dead bodies lying in the streets, and darkness coming on, they gradually drifted to the new quarter of the town near the railroad station, where they finally found refuge in the two great cotton factories—13,000 in Trepanni’s factory and 5,000 in the German factory. In this flight they were partially protected by the Macedonian soldiers. Some of them were cut and wounded as they passed by Arab soldiers, but none were killed.

DOCTORS AND NURSES SENT TO ADANA UNDER AUSPICES OF AMERICAN RED CROSS AGENTS, BEIRUT.

The four emergency hospitals in the Armenian district were thus broken up. On that Monday 120 wounded from these hospitals came down to the hospital of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie for dressings, most of them destitute of beds or bedding. The next day, Tuesday, there were over 60 inpatients under the charge of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie; 100 wounded among the 5,000 refugees in the inclosure of the German factory were segregated in a good building intended for the use of foreign employees of the factory. There were no beds for these unfortunates at first. Of this 100 many were but slightly wounded, so that when the factory was emptied of its refugees a week later only 50 were leftas interne patients. Besides the 60 or more patients in Mrs. Doughty-Wylie’s hospital, 200 outpatients were also cared for.

There were thus in the three hospitals about 375 wounded under the care of foreigners, after the second massacre, not many more than the number of wounded before the second massacre, for the newly wounded were hardly more than enough to take the places of the wounded who had been killed or burned. Besides, the nature of the second massacre was such as to leave few wounded among those attacked. The kill was usually complete.

Dr. Connell, of H. M. S.Swiftsure; Dr. Bouthillier, of the French cruiserVictor Hugo; Dr. Bockelberg, of the German cruiserHamburg, with a number of sailors and marines from their ships, gave much assistance.

A number of the native physicians likewise gave their services, though at first it was hardly safe for the Armenian doctors to do so.

The German Emperor had sent his own ship, theHamburg, post haste from Corfu to Mersine soon after the first massacre, and the supplies needed for the German Hospital were to a large extent furnished from the ship’s stores.

DR. DORMAN MAKING HIS ROUNDS OF THE CAMP. ADANA.

In the four days following the second massacre the condition of the refugees in the factories was pitiable. A little raw flour was given out, even on Monday evening, but for most of the people it was two and a half days before bread was distributed to them. The suffering was great. Conditions were not as bad in the German factory as in the Greek factory, because the inclosure of the former was spacious, and the number of refugees less. In the Greek factory the 13,000 filled all available space. The buildings were packed, with people sitting everywhere on the floor; many crawled under the machinery to find a place to lie. Out in the yard of the factory the last comers were jammed together tightly, so that for many there was actually “standing room only.” Among the refugees here few were wounded, but many sick. There had been an epidemic ofmeasles in the town before the trouble began, and in the crowding of refugees from the first massacre there had been a thorough spread of infection. The two weeks that had elapsed since the beginning of the first massacre gave time for the incubation period, and now many children broke out with the rash of measles.

A smallpox scare was of benefit, in that it hastened the evacuation of the factory. This early turning out of the crowd from the factory was one of the best steps taken in all the relief work, for although it caused some few deaths by pneumonia from exposure, it avoided the awful calamity of an outbreak of typhus fever, such as occurred after the Armenian massacres of 1895. The moving of refugees into camp from the Trepanni factory was superintended by Commander Carver, of H. M. S.Swiftsure. By Thursday noon the 13,000 had been divided up into about 30 sections to facilitate the distribution of bread. On Friday, when it was desired to empty the factory, it was announced that bread would no longer be given out in the factory, and each section, according to directions, followed its own particular bread cart out to the place of encampment, at the Yenemahalle. Here, without sufficient covering, and for a time without any tents, families were required to pass nights still cold and chilly, and days rendered intolerable by exposure to the intense heat of the sun at midday. Children in the acute stage of measles passed the night on the bare ground without any covering, and exposure to the chill air resulted in many cases of broncho-pneumonia, from which, for a time, they were dying at the rate of ten a day.

AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL IN CHARGE OF SURGEON MILLER, OF U. S. S. “NORTH CAROLINA,” ASSISTED BY THREE HOSPITAL CORPS MEN AND LADIES.

Two days after the establishment of the camp an attempt was made to separate the families with measles, and between 300 and 400 of such were collected by Commander Carver in an orange grove, a quarter of a mile away from the main Yenemahalle camp.

Tuesday, May 4, eight days after the second massacre, the German factory was cleared of its 5,000 inmates, and these were located part in an opencamp and part in adjoining houses, which, although rented by Armenians, had been spared the general destruction because belonging to Turkish owners. This location was nearly half a mile distant from the Yenemahalle camp. The people here were fed by German funds, and the place was known as the “German camp.”

At this time the allowance of rations was doubled in the large Yenemahalle camp, so that from this time on the people had sufficient food. But the bread from the emergency bakeries of the first two weeks was often poorly baked, and many people had diarrhœa, approaching dysentery, from eating the raw dough that for many was the only food available during the first two days in the factory. Tuesday night and Wednesday 500 blankets and 100 quilts, sent from Beirut, were distributed to the most destitute of the sufferers in the Yenemahalle and measles camp, but when half of the 13,000 refugees were without covering for the night, it can be understood that the 600 pieces were woefully insufficient to go around. A week later 300 more blankets were received and distributed.

GERMAN HOSPITAL IN GROUNDS OF GERMAN FACTORY WITH KAISERSWERTH DEACONESSES.

On this Tuesday a request made to Ashraf Bey, municipal sanitary inspector, for aid in medical inspection was answered by the sending of two Turkish doctors and two pharmacists, who, the following day, opened an emergency pharmacy near the measles camp.

Immediately after the second massacre, a call for medical assistance was sent by the Adana Relief Committee to Beirut, where a Red Cross Relief Committee had been constituted by Hon. G. Bie Ravndal, American Consul General; Mr. E. G. Freyer, of the American Presbyterian Mission, and Dr. Geo. E. Post, of the Syrian Protestant College. This was answered by sending an Armenian physician, Dr. Armadouni, on Wednesday, April 28, who, on arrival at Mersine, found that it was impracticable to proceed farther onaccount of government restrictions of Armenians. Surgical supplies sent with him were forwarded to Adana, and he returned to Beirut.

Another still more urgent appeal for doctors came from the Adana Relief Committee on Friday, April 30. The surgeons from the English and German ships were necessarily irregular in their attendance, and soon to be compelled to leave; Armenian doctors were not available, and severe epidemics were to be expected among the crowded and poorly fed refugees. In response to this call the American Red Cross Committee at Beirut sent a medical commission, which reached Adana on Wednesday, May 5, consisting of two students of the fourth year of the Syrian Protestant College Medical School, Dr. Kamil Hilal and Dr. Fendi Zughaiyar; Miss MacDonald, a Canadian, who had been teaching in Jerusalem, and Dr. H. G. Dorman, of the Syrian Protestant College, who is the writer. With us was a complete hospital outfit of surgical instruments, sterilizers, sterilized dressings and sutures, and a supply of condensed milk, tinned soups, drugs, etc. Miss MacDonald was succeeded later by Miss Davis, who arrived May 10. The size of the Beirut delegation was increased later by the arrival, on May 12, of Mr. Bennetorossian, of the third year in the Syrian Protestant College Medical School, and on May 20 by Dr. Haigazum Dabanian, who had been released by Dr. Torrence, of the Tiberias Mission, from his engagement in the English hospital there that he might assist in the Adana relief work. The two senior medical students were Syrians who spoke Turkish; the last two men were Armenians and deserving of especial credit in coming to Adana at this time, for they knew that in so doing they ran the risk of government suspicion and arrest.

FRENCH FLAG FLYING OVER FRENCH DISPENSARY.

With the delegation going from Beirut, although not sent by the Red Cross Society, were two Kaiserswerth Deaconesses from the Johanniter Hospital in Beirut, Sister Louisa and Sister Hannah. These two sisters were sent in response to an appeal from the captain of theHamburg. They took the German hospital in charge from the time of their arrival in Adana and inaugurated a reign of cleanliness and order that made the German hospital a pleasure to behold.

On Tuesday, May 6, as the doctors from the English and German ships were compelled to leave, the writer was asked by the Relief Committee to take entire charge of the medical work. I began with a survey of conditions.

In the German hospital were 23 men and 25 women and children now under the care of the two German Deaconesses; 15 or 20 outpatients were coming in for daily dressings.

In Mrs. Doughty-Wylie’s hospital were 17 men and 20 women and children, and in the railroad freight house, under her care, were 21 men and 4 women; 160 outpatients were having their dressings done at this hospital.

In the American Girls’ School were 15 women and children, under the care of Miss Wallis and Dr. Salibian. Some 10 or 15 wounded outpatients were also dressed at the daily clinic held by these two in the Yenemahalle camp.

Thus there were at this time, in all, 305 wounded under the care of foreigners.

PHARMACISTS AND DOCTORS IN FRONT OF ARMENIAN EMERGENCY PHARMACY IN YENEMAHALLE CAMP.

Except for the need of a surgeon in charge of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie’s hospital, the surgical work seemed well in hand and likely to be of lessening urgency, while the medical need was just getting into its prime and had been so far almost entirely neglected. In the Yenemahalle and German camps some 200 were reported as sick, while in the measles camp between 75 and 100 children were suffering from the sequence of measles, bronchitis, pneumonia, otitis, and from diarrhœa and dysentery, as the result of bad food. A discouraging feature of the outlook was the lack of bedding to protect the sick from exposure, and another difficulty was the absence of milk or soup for the hundreds who could eat nothing else. When people die from starvation, it is usually not for lack of something to put in their stomachs. Their hunger compels them to swallow things unfit for food and a fatal diarrhœa or dysentery is the result. For the children, made sick by eating dough during the days in the factory, the rations of the camp, consisting at first of coarse and half-cooked beans (fule), were as impossible food as is grass to a healthy man. Only a limited supply of milk at famine prices was at this time available. There was sometimes two cups of milk a day, sometimes one, and sometimes none for the sick babies, andconsequently the little ones were fading away quickly. Happy were the mothers who were nursing their own children, but it was sad to see little ones starving where the mother was too sick to nurse. I was reminded of the work of thoughtless hunters, who kill the parent birds in nesting time and leave the little ones to starve in the nest. Day by day the rows of little unnamed graves were lengthened near the measles camp. Heart rending scenes of mothers beseeching help for their dying babies were common. Some babies were killed in the massacres by cutting and shooting, and perhaps there the Turks were the more merciful.

The camps were rapidly becoming foul from lack of sanitary restrictions. Swarming flies were zealous to convey infection, and it only needed a good hard rain, such as is common in Adana at this time of the year, to spread an epidemic of typhoid or dysentery that would have been impossible to combat.

These were the needs of the camps: Cleanliness, milk, bedding, efficient medical attendance, medicines, and pharmacists. All these needs were gradually supplied in the course of the next ten or twelve days.

CAMP LIFE, ADANA.

The first week’s work after our arrival seemed rather discouraging, although constant progress was made. The camps were rigorously cleaned under threat of short rations. Fortunately the rain held off, and in time the camps became relatively sweet and clean. After a week and a half the refugees began moving back to their ruined homes, and the relief of the congested condition of the camp was a constant lessening of the menace of epidemic outbreak. Until medical force became reinforced, we had to cover the field among us as best we could. Sickness was on the increase, and once the daily reports handed in by the head men of the camp sections showed 400 sick in camp, of whom 75 were reported as “very sick.”

The medical staff at first was quite inadequate for the work of visiting all these sick. The two Turkish doctors and the two pharmacists found the life too strenuous for much more than half a day’s work at a time. It was several days before we were able to do more than make sure that the very sick were seen by a doctor each day.

There was also a shortage of drugs. The remedies needed were few and simple, but they were needed in large quantities. This lack was soon supplied from the drug shops in Mersine. There was a shortage of bottles to put fluid medicines in, and medicines when not taken on the spot were dispensed in finjans, old tin cups, or anything that would hold fluids. One man at the dispensary, whose prescription for castor oil had been filled, in spite of protestations, into his own mouth, when he was told to go finally made clear that it was for his wife that he wanted the medicine.

These rough and ready methods gradually passed as better organization became possible. Dr. Peoples, newly arrived for American mission work in Mersine, joined the medical staff in Adana on May 9, and gave valuable assistance in various branches of the work. After a week, on May 12, the returning French Sisters of Charity, among whom were two experienced nurses, opened a pharmacy and clinic for the refugees of the German camp.

On Sunday, May 16, an Armenian delegation, sent by the Armenians of Constantinople, consisting of three senior medical students, one doctor, and two pharmacists, opened a well-equipped pharmacy, which they had brought with them, in the Yenemahalle camp.

In the meantime the conditions of hospital work became greatly improved. On May 8, three days after our arrival, the surgical hospital of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie was moved from the little cottage and railroad sheds, where such excellent emergency work had been done under such adverse circumstances, to a large commodious house, which had been generously offered for the work by its owner, Cosma Simeonides. In the well-ventilated, spacious rooms of this building 60 patients were comfortably housed, and sufficient space was left for an admirable operating room, for accommodations for help, and for kitchen needs. To care for the patients in these improved quarters, and to relieve the work of the British marines, the necessity for whose withdrawal was anticipated in the near future, a corps of 15 young Armenians and Greeks were enrolled as hospital assistants. These volunteers were for the most part students of St. Paul’s Institute, at Tarsus, and their knowledge of English facilitated the work for the English speaking doctors and nurses. Under these new conditions work which before was arduous and imperfect became a constant source of satisfaction and pleasure. A large debt of gratitude is due to the owners who so generously devoted their beautiful home to this work.

The transfer of the surgical patients left the first emergency hospital free for the accommodation of medical patients. It was soon filled and overflowing, and within a week it was found necessary to accept an offer of the use of the Greek School for the accommodation of patients. On Saturday, May 15, this building was opened as a medical hospital with 50 patients, the most part cases of pneumonia, enteric fever, and dysentery. These patients, too, were under the general care and oversight of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie. In this building also were housed the four American first-aid bluejackets who came up from the cruiserNorth Carolinathe following week; and here, too, was instituted another pharmacy to supply the needs of the hospitals under the care of the sailors who had had training in pharmaceutical work.

In connection with the improvement of the hospital work should be mentioned the noble work of several trained nurses, whose services were earlyvolunteered. Miss Yerghanian, sent by the King’s Daughters Society of Smyrna for this work, arrived on May 5. Miss La Fontaine, of the British Seaman’s Hospital at Smyrna, came soon after. These two, in conjunction with two Armenian nurses who came with the Constantinople Armenian Relief Commission, undertook the nursing of the medical hospital. Miss Davis, of the Jessie Taylor Memorial School, of Beirut, furnished Mrs. Doughty-Wylie most acceptable and skillful assistance in the work at the surgical hospital.

It has been said that perhaps the greatest need of the medical work for the Adana refugees was the lack of sufficient supply of milk. Accordingly the most encouraging day of our work was the day, ten days after our arrival, when arrangements were made to secure huge quantities of goats’ milk from peasants at less than half the famine price of cows’ milk that prevailed in the first days of the camp life. Distribution of the milk and soup in the camps had been early assigned to the Misses Webb, of the American Girls’ School in Adana. The work of these two ladies in their constant, tireless devotion to the relief of discomfort, sickness, and trouble incidental to the distressing conditions of the camp life, calls for the warmest admiration. To the sufferers, whose constant appeals to them were never slighted, these sisters were veritable ministering angels of mercy. Another assistant in this relief work was Mrs. Kuhne, of Mersine, who, while her health permitted, helped in the work of the upper camp.

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