Tibetan Foothold by Dervla Murphy Read Free Book Online

intention of missing this opportunity.
    After supper we set to, having forbidden any Tibetan to enter the Dispensary, hung a blanket over the window, spread countless newspapers on the table and drenched the room in undiluted Dettol. The whole thing was extremely dangerous for Oliver; without adequate gloves or instruments the slightest nick in his hand could have proved fatal. In spite of my fondness for the child I was fascinated by the operation; somehow one doesn’t connect the corpse that’s being cut up with the human being one liked. After three hours’ hard work every organ had been removed and dissected, but the examination merely confirmed that Dolma had pneumonia in both lungs, an enlarged liver and intestines crammed with huge worms – which were still alive. It’s astonishing how much a body can contain: when everything was out in a big basin one could hardly believe that it had all fitted into the little space available. Oliver was very scrupulous about replacing every organ in its exact position, after I had baled bowlfuls of blood out of the torso, and then he sewed up the body as neatly as though after an operation. When we had replaced it in its little cardboard coffin he completed the ceremony by reading a short prayer for the dead from his German prayer-book.
4 AUGUST
    It’s Sunday today so we have a free afternoon and I can write a longer entry. Really these Tiblets are most remarkable – I doubt if 600 children of any other breed could be so easily managed. Indeed it would be impossible to treat their complaints even as effectively as we do were it not for their extraordinary obedience and conspicuously high average rate of intelligence – even the tiniest tots respond to signlanguage. On my first morning at the Dispensary Juliet decided that we should administer cough-mixture regularly, so I went out to confront the multitude, bearing a huge flagon of mixture and a spoon. Not very hopefully I coughed exaggeratedly myself, pretended to drinkfrom the spoon and indicated the spot on the veranda where I wanted all ‘coughers’ to queue. My astonishment was considerable when, within two minutes, all concerned were lined up for their dose, beaming at me with that irresistible blend of spontaneous affection and trust so characteristic of small Tibetan children.
    Of course the language problem is a nuisance at times as none of the children even speak Hindi, which Juliet would be able to understand. Neither she nor I hope to learn more than a few basic medical phrases in Tibetan, but Oliver, with his Swiss gift of tongues, is making rapid progress and should soon have a good working knowledge of his patients’ language. I envy him this facility, as it will enable him to get closer to the Tibetans than most Europeans do; already his sensitivity to their point of view has won him the affection and confidence of both adults and children.
    There are two hamlets of tumble-down shacks near here – Forsythe Bazaar and Macleod Ganj – which have been taken over fairly recently by the refugees. Hitherto these adults have been wary of Western medicine, preferring their own ‘amchis’, who use a combination of herbal lore and quasi-religious charms – but now the sick from both hamlets are coming to the Dispensary in increasing numbers during ‘out-patient’ hours. Perhaps this is partly because Oliver sincerely respects their religious beliefs and also studies the old herbalist medicine; he believes in using simple local remedies when possible, rather than in concentrating on exorbitantly expensive drugs from abroad.
    To return to the Distinguishing Marks of Tiblets. Their consideration for and politeness to each other positively makes me feel I’ve moved to another planet. I haven’t yet seen them quarrelling over anything – a most striking example of how deeply the Buddhist doctrine of non-violence has influenced the race. Not that Tibetans are incapable of quarrelling; many of them, especially the