The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon
History
The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Armenian question; Armenians; World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Refugees
The last day of June Mrs. Ussher took her children, who had whooping
cough, out of the pestilential atmosphere of the city to Artamid,
the summer home on Lake Van, nine miles away. Dr. Ussher went there
for the week-end, desperately in need of a little rest. On Saturday
night they both became very ill. Upon hearing of this I went down to
take care of them. On Monday Mr. and Mrs. Yarrow also fell ill. Ten
days yet remained till the time set for closing the hospital for the
summer, but Miss Bond set her nurses to the task of sending the
patients away and went over to nurse the Yarrows. This left me
without help for five days. Then, for four days more, two Armenian
nurses cared for the sick ones at night and an untrained man nurse
helped me during the daytime. Miss Rogers had come down on Thursday,
the day after commencement, for the cure of what she believed to be
an attack of malaria. On Friday she too fell ill. Fortunately, there
was at last a really good Russian physician in town, and he was most
faithful in his attendance. The sickness proved to be typhus. Later
we learned that at about the same time Miss Silliman, who had left
for America on her furlough on the 15th June, accompanied by Neville
Ussher, had been ill at Tiflis with what we now know was a mild form
of the same disease. Dr. Ussher might have contracted it from his
outside patients, but the others undoubtedly contracted it from the
Turkish refugees.
Mrs. Yarrow was dangerously ill, but passed her crisis safely and
first of all. Miss Bond then came to Artamid, though Mr. Yarrow was
still very ill, feeling that the Usshers needed her more on account
of their distance from the doctor. Miss Ussher took charge of the
Yarrow children up in Van; Mrs. Raynolds managed the business
affairs of the mission.
Mrs. Ussher had a very severe form of the disease, and her delicate
frame, worn out with the overwork and terrible strain of the months
past, could make no resistance. On the 14th July she entered into
the life eternal.
We dared not let the sick ones suspect what had happened. Dr. Ussher
was too ill at the time and for more than two weeks longer to be
told of his terrible loss. For three months preceding his illness he
had been the only physician in Van, and the strain of over-work and
sleeplessness told severely now. After he had passed his typhus
crisis, his life was in danger for a week longer from the pneumonia
which had been a complication from the first. Then followed another
not infrequent complication of typhus, an abscess in the parotid
gland which caused long-continued weakness and suffering, at one
time threatened life and reason, and has had serious consequences
which may prove permanent. Mr. Yarrow was so ill that his life was
quite despaired of. It was by a veritable miracle that he was
restored to us.
FLIGHT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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