A Letter written on Nov 10, 1918

272 Meigs St.
Rochester, N.Y.
Nov. 10, 1918.

Dear Miss Turner,

I believe I told you before college closed that I expected to be at home and act as my father's office assistant this year. He said when I first proposed the plan to him that I must do it only until something which I was very anxious to do came up. I was unwilling to look at it in that light, and fully intended to stay for a year at least, until I found that there was really not going to be enough for me to do to keep me busy nearly all my time. A good opportunity turned up rather suddenly, and as father was very anxious to have me accept the position I did so. Almost immediately after that the epidemic started at home and I begged off for a week to help father. I certainly had enough to do there!

At present I am a laboratory assistant in physiology at the University of Rochester. I have nothing to do with the students, but I am helping in some scurvy work which the government has requested them (the dept. of physiology) to do here. Dr. Murlin, now Col. Murlin, who is the head of the department, is now in Washington. Dr. Givens, the acting head, and Dr. McClugage are the only ones in the department, and they have come here from Yale only this summer. Dr. Givens is conducting a mills survey of the poorer districts of the city, and he is also carrying on scurvy experiments with guinea pigs. My part of the job at present is to feed the guinea pigs, which takes up nearly all the morning, and in the afternoon plot curves of various sorts and tabulate the results of the milk survey. It's mighty interesting work. Aside from the fact that I'm scared to death I won't feed the precious pigs right I'm enjoying myself very much! If I should ever give high dried potato to a pig that's supposed to have orange juice, what would ever become of me?

The object of the experiment is to find out whether dried food prepared in different ways contains an antiscorbutic vitamin. Each pig is fed every day fourteen grams of soy cake which is made up of soy flour, milk, calcium lactate, pulped filter paper and some other things. That is an adequate ration in every way except that the pigs get scurvy when they are fed on that only. Then each pig has a small amount of supplement each day, which is where the real testing out comes, of course. We have potatoes steamed and dried at three different temperatures, and baked and dried; we have dried carrots, and tomatoes dried at two different temperatures, these being fed both cooked and raw; we also have dried orange juice, both the commercial product and some made up here in the laboratory. Of course to check up on these some of the pigs get fresh cooked and raw vegetables.

There are only about seventy pigs in the laboratory at present but Dr. Givens hopes to increase the number to two hundred as soon as he can get them.

This letter seems to be very much of a personal history, but I remembered that you said you would like to hear what we are doing this year. I was very sorry to leave home, as I had enjoyed working with father a lot, but he is much better satisfied to have me doing this, and he can get a retired nurse to come and help him out at intervals when he gets swamped. One thing I was glad of a chance to do before I left, and that was to watch an iridectomy performed. In the middle of the epidemic father was called to a case which he diagnosed as acute glaucoma. He immediately sent for a specialist, as he thought it would probably be necessary to operate at once. Of course there was not a nurse to be had, and so I went down and helped that afternoon and even had a chance to help Dr. Carson a little when he was operating. It was wonderful to see how soon the poor woman was relieved of the terrific pain she had suffered. The prompt operation saved the sight of her eye.

It is impossible today to write a letter or talk to anyone without speaking of the seemingly speedy signing of the armistice. Isn't it the best news ever? At church this morning the minister announced that he had left word with the editor of one of the papers to send the news of the signing of the armistice immediately to the church if it came during the service. In the middle of his sermon a paper was handed him, he immediately announced that the good news had come. The people all clapped and then got up and sang the doxology. In the middle of it we noticed he looked rather worried, and afterwards he announced that upon reading the paper he found it merely said: "No news yet." At least it must come soon.

Please give my kindest regards to Miss Oliver and Miss Walters and accept a big share of them for yourself.

Very sincerely yours
Ruth E. Conklin.