Tibetan Foothold by Dervla Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

scabies, septic headsores from lice, septic bed-bug bites, boils, abscesses of incredible sizes, rickets, bleeding gums, weak hearts, asthma, conjunctivitis, trachoma and otitis media. The majority suffer from calcium and vitamin C deficiency and a heart-breaking number, no matter what is done for them now, will probably be partially blind or deaf, or both, in maturity. I was quite relieved by the deaths of three out of the four who went this week: it was obvious that they would have died young anyway, after a few more years of suffering. Worms are the main immediate cause of death. Juliet tells me that soon after she arrived she witnessed the unforgettably horrible sight of a fourteen-inch-long worm coming out of a year-old baby’s mouth. Naturally enough the child was choked to death. In extreme cases the worms sometimes infest even the brain. Scabies, which we tend to think of as a mildly annoying skin disease, is almost equally serious under these conditions of malnutrition, overcrowding and dirt. Many of the children are so covered with festering, open soresthat you couldn’t find room for a sixpence on a clear bit of skin. And when put to bed – six children lie across each bed – the heat so aggravates the itch and pain that they often lie awake whimpering quietly for hours. The only effective answer to scabies is cleanliness, but until the monsoon is over we are helpless to do anything about this. We can only try to keep the suppurating sores under some sort of control, and here again, if the Tiblets weren’t so co-operative our task would be almost impossible.
    Each afternoon when Juliet, Kesang and I go out onto our bungalow veranda we find five queues – one from each room – awaiting us in charge of their respective ayahs. We are then joined by two of the Dispensary ayahs, and for the next three hours there isn’t time to raise one’s eyes from the succession of naked little bodies. The children take off their filthy dress or shirt and trousers, just before their turn comes, and many of them have to be painted all over with mercurochrome. Others are infected only in certain places and it’s pathetic to see tiny tots of three or four helpfully and solemnly indicating their sore patches, from the tops of their shaven heads to between their toes. It’s even more pathetic to see some of them comparing scabies, as our children might compare stamp collections, while they wait in the queue. But then, they don’t know what good health feels like, so perhaps their suffering is not as ghastly as we imagine. Sometimes, during my first couple of days, I didn’t notice all the infected areas and if the child concerned failed to put me right the next one would very quickly point out that a place behind this ear or under that arm was being forgotten. Often one comes on a boil or an abscess that needs squeezing out and then a little crowd collects around the sufferer, stroking his back or patting his head to help him through the ordeal. I wish I could show more sympathy to each child during this whole performance, but when dealing with such numbers it’s difficult to treat them as individuals. Yet already I’m afraid I have a favourite – which is deplorably unethical of me!
    Lunchtime today provided a little light relief. Spinach was one of the vegetables, and the last meal Dolma had before her death consisted entirely of spinach – a fact which became very obvious during last night’s post-mortem. Accordingly, when the lid came off the vegetable-dish both Oliver and Juliet paled perceptibly, and I – the non-medical member of the party – had three helpings.
    Which brings me to the subject of food. Our diet here is about 80% Tibetan – very nice too. All meals come from the camp kitchen, and though the ingredients are local the methods of cooking are not. For breakfast we have an almost European meal of cornflakes bought by Juliet in Lower Dharamsala, processed cheddar cheese donated to the camp by the