PART II
CHAPTER XI
But during all these months, since the establishment of our camp hospital, we had been occupied not only with military work—wounded soldiers—but also with civilian work. We had started with one hundred and thirty wounded within the first few days; but I had at once realised that as the typhus epidemic was diminishing, there would, in all probability, not be enough work to absorb all our energies, unless military activities were resumed.
But it is never of much consequence whether this, that, or the other thing happens; it is the way in which you treat what happens, that is important. If you have an ideal, everything will work together for good. It doesn't so much matter what you do, so long as you do something. Something, even if it is not the ideal, may lead to the ideal, whereas inaction leads to nothing. The one and only fatal disaster is to do nothing.
In a country which had suffered as Serbia had suffered, during years of continuous warfare, there must be need for help of some kind, the only question was, in what direction?
The inspiration came the fifth day after our arrival at Kragujevatz. I was talking with Major Protitch; he was describing the conditions of the country, and he mentioned that one-third of the Serbian doctors had died, either of typhus, or at the front, and that the remainder were all occupied, either with military work, in the hospitals in the towns, or with administrative work, or at the front; with the result that no medical aid was available for the peasants in the country districts.
I realised in a moment what that meant. The country was going through a serious epidemic of typhus, in addition to diphtheria, typhoid, and other diseases; and in the villages, and small towns, there were no doctors to prescribe for the patients, or to check the spread of the infection. Typhus victims, in ox-wagons, still passed our camp all day long on their way to join the four thousand already buried in the typhus graveyard, a short distance beyond our hospital.
It was market day at Kragujevatz (Friday, April 30th), and as I said good-bye to the Serbian doctor, on the edge of our encampment, near the road, I stood and watched the streams of peasants on their way to the market; women in Scotch plaid skirts, with coloured or black kerchiefs on their heads, and children, and old men, all driving pigs and sheep, or carrying geese and poultry slung on sticks, head downwards, over their shoulders, or leading oxen which were drawing wagons filled with barrels of rakiya—the native whisky. And at once an idea came. It was straightway discussed with our doctors, who approved, and promised co-operation, and it was at once carried into effect. Unless we seize time as it passes, it is apt to pass us by. We immediately pitched a bell tent at the outer edge of the hospital encampment, on the roadside, improvised a notice board from an old packing case, and, with the help of an interpreter, wrote, in Serbian, words to the effect, that if folks would bring their own bottles, medicine and medical advice would be given gratis. A doctor, a nurse, and an interpreter took charge of the tent dispensary, and we waited with eager curiosity to see what happened. The result was that within a few weeks 12,000 people, men, women, and children, came to this roadside dispensary, either in ox-wagons or walking from distances of fifty, sixty, even seventy miles—ill with typhus, diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox, tuberculosis, and every conceivable and inconceivable form of disease.
Besides medicine and general treatment and injections of serum, advice was given as to hygiene, sanitation, the need for fresh air and cleanliness, etc. Diphtheria, especially amongst the children, was rampant. Whole families were being exterminated. One day a man brought to the dispensary his little girl, who was suffering from diphtheria, and he asked us to inject her with the serum, of which he had heard from other peasants. He told us that another child had just died, at home, of the same sickness; he had been afraid to bring her, but he had now brought this child to be treated, as it could only die once. The serum was injected, and next day the child was so much better that the following day both the father and the mother arrived, in their ox-wagon, bringing with them their six remaining children, who were all ill with the same disease. They were, of course, all treated with the serum, and this little family was thus saved from being blotted out.