Note 58 — Chapter XXIX

I learned at Haidar Pasha that Hill’s medical history was never sent to Gumush Suyu, nor did the Gumush Suyu doctors ask for it, although they knew Hill had been two months under Mazhar Osman Bey. Hill’s transfer was made in obedience to an administrative order from the Turkish War Office, without the knowledge or concurrence of our own doctors, who were off duty when the order arrived. I was sent to Gumush Suyu at the same time as Hill, and was subjected to similar treatment. (My temperature on admission was 103° due to influenza.) By dint of making a thorough nuisance of myself to everybody, I succeeded in getting myself sent back to Haidar Pasha after thirty-six hours of Gumush Suyu, but failed to get them to send Hill with me. The reason for sending me back was stated in a note from the head doctor which said that Gumush Suyu hospital had neither the trained staff nor the accommodation necessary for mental cases. It amounts to this: The bold experimenters at Gumush Suyu were quite ready to practise their prentice theories on Hill, who was harmless and passive under their treatment as befitted his malady, but they had no desire to try their tricks on a lunatic who was active and possibly dangerous, like myself. When I pretended to take a violent dislike to one of the doctors, and tried to buy a knife from the sentry, they thought discretion the better part of valour. This was the sole reason why I was a “case for specialists,” while Hill was not.