Ootacamund,
Nilgiri Hills, South India,
Sept. 25, 1928.Dear Miss Turner,
It's ages & ages since I wrote you but I hoep some of the letters that have gone to Brookline or to D. Eliz. have reached you, too. I had two nice cards from you. The last, the source of the Rhone was a lovely thing. By now you're beginning work again & I do hope feeling fit. It is a great comfort to know D. Elizabeth is there to help you.
College broke up on the 20th, ending the first & worst term. It has been a good term. Toward the middle of it I was wishing terribly for a holiday, when there was an inordinate number of extracurricular activities for which I was partially or wholly responsible, but by the time we broke up I was feeling very fit, not needing a holiday at all, almost more fit than any time anywhere, I think. I'm perfectly sure that minus the internal handicap that I left in the U.S.A. I'll thrive in the tropics.
The question of tropical physiology is interesting me intensely these days & I can't keep from trying to interpret physical states in terms of it. For instance when my metabolism has dropped from -9% in Boston to -19% in Madras it is small wonder that I shiver & freeze when I scend in three hours from a temperature of 90° to one of 50 or thereabouts here?
I have so far measured 9 Indians & 4 Europeans, including Miss Cosmey and Miss Crow whom I have measured on two different occasions. Miss Cosmey, alas, is a maddeningly unsteady subject. Dr. DuBois' measurements on her on 2 successive days are miles apart. He calls the 1st day "unsatisfactory" & on the 2nd remarks "Mental attitude much better." Evidently he had trouble, too! The measurements I've made on her have been considerably higher than his 2nd day which was -17% normal but I don't put much stock in them because she is so unsteady.
Miss Crow of Toronto on the other hand is an excellent subject. In May in Toronto she was -1.1% normal, after three weeks here she was -10.5% and after six weeks -17%! Isn't it amazing? I'm wishing awfully that Miss Laird would invite her to Holyoke next year (she has considered her, I know) so that we could follow changes in the reverse direction! Nora Brockway, at the end of 5 years here, is -20% N.
All of this took me completely by surprise for I had accepted Dr. Benedict's judgment that there must be something fishy about de Heneida's work in tropical Brazil. You know he reported very low values for Europeans there in contrast with Ejkmann's only slightly low values in Batavia. Of course it's far too soon to generalize, but 3 out of 4 Europeans falling between -17 & -20 does seem significant. I want to get some of these non-missionary women who don't do any strenuous work except tennis.
My nine Indian girls have fallen between -6% & -27%. I've been doing reclining blood pressures & vital capacities on all subjects & am just starting the prolonged standing tests. There seems to be no significant difference between Indians & Europeans with regard to blood pressures & metabolisms, but the vital capacities of most of the Indians are extraordinarily low according to your chart. Most of them fall well below the -40 line. My own is low but not nearly so bad as theirs. N.B. Do you take the crest of the respiratory wave as your systolic reading? I asked you but can't remember.
I'm crazy to get replies from Dr. Benedict about my experiments but there will be another 3 weeks yet before there can be an answer to the first. Miss McDougall is coming round all right. Your letter came just after I arrived & she seemed a good bit perturbed about it but I was very glad to have her fairly intelligently prepared for my approach. Since I have been actually working through, she is becoming more & more keen &, I think, takes considerable pride in bringing visitors past my office in the mornings when I have a screen & sign up, & explaining to them what is going on behind the screen! She has lately begun to talk about trying to get some money for me from somewhere to buy oxygen with! That's very sweet of her.
Ootacamund. Sept. 30.
'Tis a glorious, glorious Sunday. Oh, I wish you could even glimpse these So. Indian hills, & feel the refreshing cool nd sting of the air after the breathless best of the plains, & look out on the green rolling hills. I puff terrifically still when I exercise at this altitude (about 8000 feet) but have had some fair jaunts nevertheless. There are something like 1000 sq. miles of rolling downs, on & on & on; one can explore endlessly, always discovering new & yet more lovely vistas of soft rolling green. Everywhere there are the most exquisite wee flowers, tiny starry blue gentians underfoot everywhere, perfect little cups of red & yellow oxalis, balsams, orchids, & so on. I'm taking a collection of things back for our senior botanists who never see these hill flora. The birds here thrill me, too. As I sit now on my doorstep, a flock of darling wee Indian white-eyes [...]gs about in the rose bushes just beyond arm's reach making the faintest of chirps. They are very saucy & sweet.
We're an interesting household here - English, Irish, Welsh, Danish (Mrs. Larsen who is convalescing from typhoid), Australian & American, all missionaries from many parts of India, medical, educational & evangelistic. I'm always keen to talk with doctors here, particularly those who work among women. Yesterday I had a long walk & talk with a nice young English doctor from the London school of Medicine for women. She has been 3 years in So. India, working night & day as most mission doctors have to do, & having no end of interesting & baffling experiences. I do so wish our college doctor were one who would be interested in my work & would cooperate, but I've little hope in Mrs. Monahan, who returns to India this week.
On my way here I spent an interesting weekend at a retreat of several travelers of our International Fellowship. The main theme of discussion was "Intercommunal Tension" & points of view were presented by Brahmins & non-Brahmins, by Hindus & Mohammedans, & by European & Indian Christian[s]. So much prejudice is due simply to ignorance that such open discussions in a friendly atmosphere help a lot. One leading Indian Christian, A. A. Paul whom D. Eliz. will know, gave a long dissertation on the duties of missionaries, how they could best fulfill their professed mission of service to India by identifying themselves completely with the country - i.e. becoming naturalized, intermarrying, bringing up their children in this country, ceasing to be dependent on foreign funds, trusting only to the generosity of the people among whom they work, even tho' it lead to sickness, death, etc. I've heard it all before & to a certain extent I can agree with him. I do think that the administration of funds & policies by organizations in foreign parts is wrong, that the time has come when folks at home should be willign to give & trust to the judgment of those on the field, missionaries & native Christians. I also think that Indians could & should give much more than they do toward Christian work, that they have come to take for granted that they needn't make the effort but can get what they need from mission funds. This same Mr. Paul has been the prime mover in establishing a girls' school in his part of the country, to which we loaned one of our staff for 2 years to get it on its feet. When I asked him about it, he admitted that he had solicited more than 50% of the funds from foreign friends in India. And yet his community is one of the most well-to-do of any Christian group in the country!
More & more missionaries are trying to do away with things that make for differences between them & the people among whom they work. To my way of thinking the only really important thing is one's own attitude. The superiority complex which is natural to so many white folk works havoc & if folks find it easier to get away from it by wearing Indian dress, eating Indian food & living as Indians do generally, let them do it. But I am perfectly sure that just as true relations of sympathy and understanding, of sharing of happiness & suffering, are reached between Indians & Europeans who continue to live as Europeans. It is a mightily interesting world, this - & mightily perplexing. I'm amazed at the difference in one's mental state between one's first term & the second term, a new perspective that comes partly from having been away from the scene of action & looking at it from afar, partly from being older, plus an intangible something, all of which makes it very, very sweet to be back & have a share in the changing order of thigns. Don't I sound like a grandmother? [smiley face]
Very much love to you, Miss Turner, and to my friends in So. Hadley. I'd be glad if you'd share this letter also with the Brookline folks for I don't seem to write much these days.