Notes From a Medical Missionary

THE following is reprinted from the ABM Review. It was written by Dr. Blanche Briggs, who is in charge of the Anglican mission hospital at Eroro, Papua. Dr, Briggs has been in Papua for several months and is coping with the situation in true pioneering spirit—everything from a man with a “busted” appendix and an op eration by torchlight, to building a hos pital ward has gone her way and been dealt with efficiently, and with an evi dent sense of humour. That is how we like our missionaries.

IN the middle of July we had our dis astrous fire, when the Mission House was burned down, with practically everything it contained. The fire started upstairs and raced through the place, which had walls of New Guinea grass, ceilings of sisalkraft, and, of course, flimsy mosquito nets. The Nicholls got themselves out, and there was little time for more (The Rev. R. A. B. Nicholls and family). They lost everything, and the Mission stores too. The Sisters’ house and my house were untouched. A work-boy and medical-boy got a lot out of the kitchen, mercifully including the laundry that was waiting to be ironed; otherwise the Nicholls family would have had no clothes but what they stood up in. We thought that we would have to live on bully beef and rice from the main store, but someone found the bread crock among the ruins with a new batch of bread in it, charred on the outside but delicious inside.

Neighbours came to the rescue with food, cutlery, etc., and the Bishop ar ranged for the “St. George” to come up

with necessary supplies in amazingly quick time. Now the Nicholls live in the former deacon’s house 200 yards away, while a new Mission House is being built.

One result of the fire is that we have no ward for white patients, who used to be put in the guest-house, so Jean and I are planning to build one on a block of cement that was apparently the kitchen of an Army bakehouse. That fixes the site, as we have no floor boards,

and a native floor would not carry a hospital bed too well. We bring in tall posts from the bush, get roofing iron from the dump, send boys out for a kind of sago leaf to make walls, and then make doors out of any old thing, shut ters for windows from the left-overs . . . and there is your ward!

Two nights after the fire I got my first acute abdomen in Eroro. It was a man with a busted appendix, and the nastiest one I have ever seen. It was an all-night job, including preparation for operation by lamp, lantern and torch light. We had a brand new surgical bed still in its crate, so I got a couple of

boys unpacking that and setting it up, while Sister was coping with sterilizers.

Nancy gave the anaesthetic, and two

boys scrubbed up, while two others simply stood and held torches by way of light ing. I also wore my little head-lamp.

The lamps could not be used in the presence of ether. The man was awfully sick for three days, but has since made a most rapid recovery, and after three weeks has to be sternly prevented from taking a four-mile stroll. He is a Kiwai man from near Port Moresby, and we can speak to him only in police Motu.

We have our lighter moments. While I was away, the policeman at Eroro Creek sent down a man to hospital with a note saying: “Dear Sister, I am send ing down a prisoner who is sick for ill treatment.” On Sunday morning ’Sister

was told that medical-boy Dixon had taken two small patients to Oro Bay. As Dixon is the most loyal boy the hospital could wish to have, she couldn’t under stand it, especially as Dixon was not in church. However, he arrived later, and was followed by two very woebegone boys, carrying their sleeping-mats under their arms. They had run away and Dixon had gone after them, and, to make sure they would not run away again, he handcuffed them together with New Guinea rope.

That same Dixon disturbed my equi librium to-day. I had made three bottles of different drugs for injection, and told him to boil them in the sterilizer. When I went to inspect, there were only two bottles. As two bottles were only half full, he mixed them together to make on© decent bottleful —and then smiled his most amiable smile while I scolded him!