Peiyang Women's Hospital, Tientsin, China.My dear Miss Turner;
It has been long time since we heard from each other. Your book on Basal Metabolism in Health and Disease by Bubois has been received sometime ago. Time did not allow me to write until today. My appreciation of your gift is the same altho. this is a much delayed acknowledgement. I have enjoyed the special chapter on Metabolism in Fevers. I have always given a liberal diet to fever patient in order to keep up her resistance. I was glad to learn that often a different proportion of fat, protein and carbohydrate is better utilized. That is not a balanced diet in our sence [sic] but a high fat, or high carbodrate [sic] diet as the case seems to be profited by such arrangement. Then I was much interested also in keeping mouth in good condition especially during fever. With every fever patient it is almost our routine order to give an alkaline mouth wash before and after meal. As medicine progresses we are learning more and more that patient's good physical condition is more important than drugs in the resistance of any disease. The other chapters are equally important but I want to read them again.
I keep up with the news of Mount Holyoke College thru her quarterly letter. The latter is interestingly written. Miss Woolley's 25th anniversary comes this year. There are five or six Mount Holyoke girls in town but we do not see each other often. I do see Miss Sewall now and then when she brings her students to our clinic. Tuberculosis is very prevalent among our students. Tubercular cervical adenitis is common among our children. I would like to know more about this disease. After afew [sic] years of hospital work I expect to take up one year of further study.
Spring is on hand and I am thinking of May Day Festival at Mount Holyoke College. Life is not so gay in China and we have very few social affairs. Of certain social functions I do not like to join them at all. I am thinking of getting a small plot of land for cultivation of flowers and vegetables for my leasure [sic] hours.
Let me hear about your interesting studies at Harvard. What special studies are you taking up this year?
With much love.
Yours lovingly,
M. I. Ting.April 4th, 1925.