T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 244

Ouvdut Vly ongme lh 9/13/42 To: Dr. A.G. Gibson, 27, Banbury Rd., Oxford: he thinks about 1911. Aleppo, June 23. Dear Dr. Gibson, Excuse the apparent fluency of my handwriting above, but the pen-nib was working crossly, and I flourished it to put an end to it: to follow. This place is having a cholera epidemic, and matters will probably get pretty bad with the arrival of the very hot weather at the end of this month. There are now about 40 deaths a day, and nobody is doing anything. I fear that in time we may have cases in our village, since there is much coming and going just now over the 70 miles in between, owing to the making of the Bagdad Railway. There are about 200 people in the village; and it has a lovely spring used for all drinking and washing, but a spring with a flow of about 200 gallons a minute: a very small, but very strong flowing stream. Can you tell me, very shortly, more or less what to do ? I mean in the way of medicines: I have corrosive sublimate in bulk, but[much else. If there is anything very necessary besides, could you be good enough to let me know ? You are not trespassing on the domains of any other medical man; you see I am local doctor. I don't like writing and telling my people, because they will only (or Mother will only) go wild with alarm; but my elder brother (Bob) is quite sensible and will vex for what is wanted: they come parcel-post to Aleppo to the British Consul there, which is my address: my brother knows. If the trouble comes I will probably have about 100 cases I suppose: it isn't that so much, as the trying to isolate from that matters. The people here in Aleppo are losing about 90 to 95% of their cases, so one cannot be much worse than that. It seems, however very little contagious#, seldom attacks more than one person in a family. The town of Biredjik is about 20 miles up the Euphrates, which flows at 5 miles an hour with a stream of 400 yards wide and 15 feet deep. Will this water-supply be tolerably safe ?