[some paragraph marks added for ease of reading]Women's Christian College,
Cathedral P.O., Madras, India,
August 15, 1929.Dear Miss Turner,
My delay in writing you has been because I wanted to write a long letter but the time for it never seems to come & so here goes for a little one.
There have been two from you since I wrote, the first the long one where you gave your reasons for not coming here. Your last two reasons, not wanting to teach & not being sure about the climate I can quite appreciate, though as to the first of these, if other things secured to make your coming possible I am sure that it could be arranged so that you could do research here without having to teach. But then there would be no salary to help out! About your not wanting to intrude on my territory I don't feel so certain but there I do trust your judgment. You know the ways of research and these particular problems better than I do.
It would have been most awfully, awfully nice. Edith Coon says there is a possibility of your getting a Rockefeller grant for China & that in that case you might come via India. Please do, Miss Turner. I can imagine nothing nicer than to have you here.
Miss Stokey and Edith Coon arrived as scheduled, on the 7th, their train 5 hours late because 6 buffalo derailed them in Ceylon! Miss Stokey seems to be fitting in very happily & not to mind the heat a bit. I did her metabolism this morning & made her -5% by the old Harris-Benedict. When you use the new standards, do you deduct 5% of the predicted calories or raise the final % deviation by 5? If the latter, this makes her a little higher than your measurement. I do very much appreciate your measuring all these people for me. I hope to do the standing test on her soon.
Miss Turner, I've promised again to be a University Reader this year, representing this college. That involves giving at least two public lectures, i.e. open to anyone in the University interested in your field. Last year I gave two on Basal Metabolism in Health; this year I have just notified the University that I'll give two on "Respiratory & Circulator Tests of Physical Fitness". Forgive me for stealing your title, but I can think of no other equally good. This is a plea for literature. There is still lots of time since I've chosen the dates Jan. 24th & 31st. How I wish your thesis were published as such! I have fairly detailed notes on all the section that deals with Vital Capacity but not on the rest of it. I have your four papers. And I have all the Physiological Reviews. But that is all. The University Library has no physiological journals, but one of the men at the Medical College has promised to send me a list of what they have there & I'll tell you. I should like to feel much more certain about the significance of blood pressure measurements, to know the history & wide findings of the Schneider test, and any other points that you can think of. If there are some things that you could spare for a time & would like returned, if you send them by registered book post they are, I think, quite safe. By that time I hope to have some more work done here on the circulation but I do need a lot more reading.
This is our Old Students' Day - about 60 are back & it's very nice to see them. One of our Christian undergrads has today been snatched away by her father to be married to a man about to go to England for higher study. She has never seen him. It does seem a heartless affair. His people are probably pressing it for the financial help of her dowry, & hers, lest he should fall in love with someone in England, which he may do even if he is married. She will come back here after about 10 days of festivities.
Very much love to you, Miss Turner,
from Eleanor.P.S. Lest you should hear that I've been sick let me explain: that about 3 weeks ago I went to Madura for a week-end, evidently got a chill for I had diarrhea for a day, & the next day menstruation began 10 days ahead of time, extraordinary for me. I thought little of it then. In a few days I began to have a steady smarting pain at the side & back & an overwhelming feeling of weakness & fatigue. Finally I went to bed. The doctor suspected kidney trouble but bacteriological exam of a catheter specimen showed us B. coli. She now thinks it a severe muscular strain. Things seem better now but I'll be relieved when the next period is safely passed.