Part 2

Thursday afternoon it was reported at the Consulate that nine wounded women and children from the ruined houses of the adjoining suburb had been brought into the Turkish guard house near the Consulate. A message to the guard house to ask if medical help could be given was answered by the curt reply that no assistance was needed as all would be dead by morning. There was firing on the street and murder abroad, but Mrs. Doughty-Wylie, taking with her a Greek woman and Dr. Danielides, who had taken refuge at the Consulate, went over to the guard house. The nine wounded were on the floor of a small room, lying in pools of blood. In an adjoining room were two wounded soldiers, one with a broken leg and one with a flesh wound. After a trip back to the Consulate for dressings, Mrs. Doughty-Wylie and the doctor dressed the wounds, caring first for the wounded soldiers. The women and children were then brought over and placed in a woodshed adjoining the Consulate, while the soldiers were left to the care of the proper military authorities. This formed the nucleus of the hospital relief work. There might have been ten instead of nine in this nucleus but for the fact that even while Mrs. Doughty-Wylie was at work in the guard house a wounded Armenian seeking its protection was stabbed to death by the bayonets of the soldiers in full view of the English Consulate. Of the nine, two died of peritonitis in the course of a few days; two were discharged cured within two weeks, and others were convalescing in the hospital five weeks later.

A tenth was added to the list of wounded in the Consulate that afternoon by the wounding of Major Doughty-Wylie in the right forearm, who, in the role of peacemaker, was frequently between the fire of the contending parties.

_End of First Massacre._

Friday morning, about nine o’clock, the bugles sounded the call to cease firing, and the first massacre ceased. Some four or five wounded men were brought into the British Consulate, and the little hospital overflowed into an adjoining Armenian house, where the patients lay in a little dark room with a mud floor.

On Monday a better house was engaged from a Greek. Here were four small rooms and a broad veranda, which for three weeks did service for surgical dressing room and operating room. The hospital was established with fifteen inpatients and a number of outpatients, who came for dressings. Dr. Danielides left in the middle of the week, and the work was carried on by Mrs. Doughty-Wylie, assisted by Miss Alltree and Miss Sinclair (English), and Miss Avania (Greek), until the arrival of Sick Bay Stewart Shenton and five first aid marines from the British cruiser _Swiftsure_. These came on Saturday, eight days after the end of the first massacre, and with a reinforcement of four more marines two days later they did thorough and efficient work until they were relieved after three weeks by a similar crew of men under Sick Bay Stewart Weiber from H. M. S. _Minerva_. The work of these men, and especially of Mr. Shenton, in caring for the wounded and in the daily dressing of what, after the second massacre, amounted to some 200 suppurating wounds, is deserving of the highest praise.

[Illustration: RUINS IN ADANA.]

In the interval of eight days that elapsed between the first and second massacres, confidence had begun to be gradually restored. The wounded were gathered in several places and cared for by Armenian doctors under the supervision of foreigners. Many of the wounds had gone four days without being dressed and were in bad condition.

_Work Organized._

On Monday, April 9, three days after the end of the first massacre, work began to be organized, as follows:

Under the care of Miss Wallis, in the upper Gregorian Church, 60 wounded women and children, and in the Protestant Boys’ School, 15 wounded men, together with over 15 outpatients.

Under the care of Miss E. S. Webb, in the Armenian Girls’ School, and in the lower Gregorian Church adjoining, over 40 wounded, besides 30 sick.

Under the care of the Soeurs de Charite de Ste. Leon, in a large Armenian house, 25 wounded, besides 130 outpatients.

[Illustration: RED CROSS HOSPITAL (SURGICAL) IN CHARGE OF MRS. DOUGHTY-WYLIE. IN SIMEONIDES’ HOUSE.]

There were also about a dozen wounded in the Turkish School, and among the 2,000 or so refugees in the New Market Armenian Boys’ School there were 50 sick.

In all there were 330 wounded Armenians under treatment, of whom about half were able to come and go for their dressings. Besides this, there were some 100 sick among the crowded refugees. The small proportion of wounded relative to the total number of Armenians killed in the city during the first massacre—a number estimated at 2,500—is indicative of the vindictiveness of the killing. The chance of escape was small for a man, woman, or child once disabled by a wound.

Wounded Moslems were cared for in the government charity hospital outside the city. There were about 50 inpatients, among whom were said to be a few Christians, and about 150 outpatients. In the Turkish Military Hospital there were also about 40 wounded. From 50 to 60 other wounded Moslems were cared for in their homes. The number of Moslems killed is unknown, but is said to have been 200, more or less.

_Second Massacre._

[Illustration: AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL (MEDICAL) ADANA.]

On Sunday, April 25, the aspect of the medical relief work was abruptly changed by the occurrence of the second massacre. This began at 4 in the afternoon, with a determined fusillade on the New Market Armenian School, accompanied by the firing of the building, and followed by the massacre of most of its 2,000 or more helpless refugees as they sought to escape from the death trap. Carts piled high with bodies were busy for the next three days emptying the school playground of its dead. The acute stage of incendiarism and killing lasted only until the following night, Monday, April 26, but frequent fires and the shooting of stray Armenians continued for a week after. This massacre differed from the first in the absence of any effectual resistance on the part of the Armenians, the prominent participation of the soldiers in the killing, and in that it ended with the complete destruction by fire of the Armenian section of the town, representing something over one-fourth of the city’s area. It seems also to have been characterized by a peculiarly relentless cruelty; sick and wounded men, women, and children fell alike before the shots and bayonets of the pitiless soldiery. The 2,500 who are roughly estimated to have been killed in this second massacre are, for the most part, victims of the Armenian School massacre, together with those who were killed the same afternoon in the lower Gregorian Church and adjoining girls’ school. Of the 70 sick and wounded among the refugees here, most were either killed or burned. The hospital of the French Sisters was burned at the same time. Some of the patients were burned with it, but some were saved by two of the Jesuit Fathers, who carried as many as they could over to the Church of the Jesuit Boys’ School. Even this proved for them an uncertain refuge, for the following day the buildings of the Jesuit School were burned, and its refugees, together with the Jesuit Fathers themselves, were saved from the blood-thirsty mob only by the timely intervention of Major Doughty-Wylie. In spite of his fractured arm, he had a guard from the Vali, and rode about in the endeavor to save life and restore order.

Monday morning, April 26, it was announced that government protection would be afforded only to those Armenians who should present themselves at the Konak or government house. So through the day refugees by the thousand, among them the sick and wounded, fled to the open space in front of the Konak, until the Armenian quarter was deserted. Many were escorted there by Major Doughty-Wylie with a guard of soldiers. Here they stood waiting helplessly, without food, for many hours. The women and children were commanded to stand apart from the men, and all were subjected to a thorough search for arms or valuables. Toward evening they were told to go, but no provision was made for their going. Like a herd of frightened sheep, turning back here and there as some new terror faced them, with a number trampled to death at every fresh panic, husbands separated from wives, and children separated from parents, dead bodies lying in the streets, and darkness coming on, they gradually drifted to the new quarter of the town near the railroad station, where they finally found refuge in the two great cotton factories—13,000 in Trepanni’s factory and 5,000 in the German factory. In this flight they were partially protected by the Macedonian soldiers. Some of them were cut and wounded as they passed by Arab soldiers, but none were killed.

[Illustration: DOCTORS AND NURSES SENT TO ADANA UNDER AUSPICES OF AMERICAN RED CROSS AGENTS, BEIRUT.]

The four emergency hospitals in the Armenian district were thus broken up. On that Monday 120 wounded from these hospitals came down to the hospital of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie for dressings, most of them destitute of beds or bedding. The next day, Tuesday, there were over 60 inpatients under the charge of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie; 100 wounded among the 5,000 refugees in the inclosure of the German factory were segregated in a good building intended for the use of foreign employees of the factory. There were no beds for these unfortunates at first. Of this 100 many were but slightly wounded, so that when the factory was emptied of its refugees a week later only 50 were left as interne patients. Besides the 60 or more patients in Mrs. Doughty-Wylie’s hospital, 200 outpatients were also cared for.

There were thus in the three hospitals about 375 wounded under the care of foreigners, after the second massacre, not many more than the number of wounded before the second massacre, for the newly wounded were hardly more than enough to take the places of the wounded who had been killed or burned. Besides, the nature of the second massacre was such as to leave few wounded among those attacked. The kill was usually complete.

Dr. Connell, of H. M. S. _Swiftsure_; Dr. Bouthillier, of the French cruiser _Victor Hugo_; Dr. Bockelberg, of the German cruiser _Hamburg_, with a number of sailors and marines from their ships, gave much assistance.

A number of the native physicians likewise gave their services, though at first it was hardly safe for the Armenian doctors to do so.

The German Emperor had sent his own ship, the _Hamburg_, post haste from Corfu to Mersine soon after the first massacre, and the supplies needed for the German Hospital were to a large extent furnished from the ship’s stores.

[Illustration: DR. DORMAN MAKING HIS ROUNDS OF THE CAMP. ADANA.]

_Conditions of Refugees._

In the four days following the second massacre the condition of the refugees in the factories was pitiable. A little raw flour was given out, even on Monday evening, but for most of the people it was two and a half days before bread was distributed to them. The suffering was great. Conditions were not as bad in the German factory as in the Greek factory, because the inclosure of the former was spacious, and the number of refugees less. In the Greek factory the 13,000 filled all available space. The buildings were packed, with people sitting everywhere on the floor; many crawled under the machinery to find a place to lie. Out in the yard of the factory the last comers were jammed together tightly, so that for many there was actually “standing room only.” Among the refugees here few were wounded, but many sick. There had been an epidemic of measles in the town before the trouble began, and in the crowding of refugees from the first massacre there had been a thorough spread of infection. The two weeks that had elapsed since the beginning of the first massacre gave time for the incubation period, and now many children broke out with the rash of measles.

A smallpox scare was of benefit, in that it hastened the evacuation of the factory. This early turning out of the crowd from the factory was one of the best steps taken in all the relief work, for although it caused some few deaths by pneumonia from exposure, it avoided the awful calamity of an outbreak of typhus fever, such as occurred after the Armenian massacres of 1895. The moving of refugees into camp from the Trepanni factory was superintended by Commander Carver, of H. M. S. _Swiftsure_. By Thursday noon the 13,000 had been divided up into about 30 sections to facilitate the distribution of bread. On Friday, when it was desired to empty the factory, it was announced that bread would no longer be given out in the factory, and each section, according to directions, followed its own particular bread cart out to the place of encampment, at the Yenemahalle. Here, without sufficient covering, and for a time without any tents, families were required to pass nights still cold and chilly, and days rendered intolerable by exposure to the intense heat of the sun at midday. Children in the acute stage of measles passed the night on the bare ground without any covering, and exposure to the chill air resulted in many cases of broncho-pneumonia, from which, for a time, they were dying at the rate of ten a day.

[Illustration: AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL IN CHARGE OF SURGEON MILLER, OF U. S. S. “NORTH CAROLINA,” ASSISTED BY THREE HOSPITAL CORPS MEN AND LADIES.]

Two days after the establishment of the camp an attempt was made to separate the families with measles, and between 300 and 400 of such were collected by Commander Carver in an orange grove, a quarter of a mile away from the main Yenemahalle camp.

Tuesday, May 4, eight days after the second massacre, the German factory was cleared of its 5,000 inmates, and these were located part in an open camp and part in adjoining houses, which, although rented by Armenians, had been spared the general destruction because belonging to Turkish owners. This location was nearly half a mile distant from the Yenemahalle camp. The people here were fed by German funds, and the place was known as the “German camp.”

At this time the allowance of rations was doubled in the large Yenemahalle camp, so that from this time on the people had sufficient food. But the bread from the emergency bakeries of the first two weeks was often poorly baked, and many people had diarrhœa, approaching dysentery, from eating the raw dough that for many was the only food available during the first two days in the factory. Tuesday night and Wednesday 500 blankets and 100 quilts, sent from Beirut, were distributed to the most destitute of the sufferers in the Yenemahalle and measles camp, but when half of the 13,000 refugees were without covering for the night, it can be understood that the 600 pieces were woefully insufficient to go around. A week later 300 more blankets were received and distributed.

[Illustration: GERMAN HOSPITAL IN GROUNDS OF GERMAN FACTORY WITH KAISERSWERTH DEACONESSES.]

On this Tuesday a request made to Ashraf Bey, municipal sanitary inspector, for aid in medical inspection was answered by the sending of two Turkish doctors and two pharmacists, who, the following day, opened an emergency pharmacy near the measles camp.

_Red Cross Sends Medical Aid._

Immediately after the second massacre, a call for medical assistance was sent by the Adana Relief Committee to Beirut, where a Red Cross Relief Committee had been constituted by Hon. G. Bie Ravndal, American Consul General; Mr. E. G. Freyer, of the American Presbyterian Mission, and Dr. Geo. E. Post, of the Syrian Protestant College. This was answered by sending an Armenian physician, Dr. Armadouni, on Wednesday, April 28, who, on arrival at Mersine, found that it was impracticable to proceed farther on account of government restrictions of Armenians. Surgical supplies sent with him were forwarded to Adana, and he returned to Beirut.

Another still more urgent appeal for doctors came from the Adana Relief Committee on Friday, April 30. The surgeons from the English and German ships were necessarily irregular in their attendance, and soon to be compelled to leave; Armenian doctors were not available, and severe epidemics were to be expected among the crowded and poorly fed refugees. In response to this call the American Red Cross Committee at Beirut sent a medical commission, which reached Adana on Wednesday, May 5, consisting of two students of the fourth year of the Syrian Protestant College Medical School, Dr. Kamil Hilal and Dr. Fendi Zughaiyar; Miss MacDonald, a Canadian, who had been teaching in Jerusalem, and Dr. H. G. Dorman, of the Syrian Protestant College, who is the writer. With us was a complete hospital outfit of surgical instruments, sterilizers, sterilized dressings and sutures, and a supply of condensed milk, tinned soups, drugs, etc. Miss MacDonald was succeeded later by Miss Davis, who arrived May 10. The size of the Beirut delegation was increased later by the arrival, on May 12, of Mr. Bennetorossian, of the third year in the Syrian Protestant College Medical School, and on May 20 by Dr. Haigazum Dabanian, who had been released by Dr. Torrence, of the Tiberias Mission, from his engagement in the English hospital there that he might assist in the Adana relief work. The two senior medical students were Syrians who spoke Turkish; the last two men were Armenians and deserving of especial credit in coming to Adana at this time, for they knew that in so doing they ran the risk of government suspicion and arrest.

[Illustration: FRENCH FLAG FLYING OVER FRENCH DISPENSARY.]

With the delegation going from Beirut, although not sent by the Red Cross Society, were two Kaiserswerth Deaconesses from the Johanniter Hospital in Beirut, Sister Louisa and Sister Hannah. These two sisters were sent in response to an appeal from the captain of the _Hamburg_. They took the German hospital in charge from the time of their arrival in Adana and inaugurated a reign of cleanliness and order that made the German hospital a pleasure to behold.

On Tuesday, May 6, as the doctors from the English and German ships were compelled to leave, the writer was asked by the Relief Committee to take entire charge of the medical work. I began with a survey of conditions.

In the German hospital were 23 men and 25 women and children now under the care of the two German Deaconesses; 15 or 20 outpatients were coming in for daily dressings.

In Mrs. Doughty-Wylie’s hospital were 17 men and 20 women and children, and in the railroad freight house, under her care, were 21 men and 4 women; 160 outpatients were having their dressings done at this hospital.

In the American Girls’ School were 15 women and children, under the care of Miss Wallis and Dr. Salibian. Some 10 or 15 wounded outpatients were also dressed at the daily clinic held by these two in the Yenemahalle camp.

Thus there were at this time, in all, 305 wounded under the care of foreigners.

[Illustration: PHARMACISTS AND DOCTORS IN FRONT OF ARMENIAN EMERGENCY PHARMACY IN YENEMAHALLE CAMP.]

Except for the need of a surgeon in charge of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie’s hospital, the surgical work seemed well in hand and likely to be of lessening urgency, while the medical need was just getting into its prime and had been so far almost entirely neglected. In the Yenemahalle and German camps some 200 were reported as sick, while in the measles camp between 75 and 100 children were suffering from the sequence of measles, bronchitis, pneumonia, otitis, and from diarrhœa and dysentery, as the result of bad food. A discouraging feature of the outlook was the lack of bedding to protect the sick from exposure, and another difficulty was the absence of milk or soup for the hundreds who could eat nothing else. When people die from starvation, it is usually not for lack of something to put in their stomachs. Their hunger compels them to swallow things unfit for food and a fatal diarrhœa or dysentery is the result. For the children, made sick by eating dough during the days in the factory, the rations of the camp, consisting at first of coarse and half-cooked beans (fule), were as impossible food as is grass to a healthy man. Only a limited supply of milk at famine prices was at this time available. There was sometimes two cups of milk a day, sometimes one, and sometimes none for the sick babies, and consequently the little ones were fading away quickly. Happy were the mothers who were nursing their own children, but it was sad to see little ones starving where the mother was too sick to nurse. I was reminded of the work of thoughtless hunters, who kill the parent birds in nesting time and leave the little ones to starve in the nest. Day by day the rows of little unnamed graves were lengthened near the measles camp. Heart rending scenes of mothers beseeching help for their dying babies were common. Some babies were killed in the massacres by cutting and shooting, and perhaps there the Turks were the more merciful.

The camps were rapidly becoming foul from lack of sanitary restrictions. Swarming flies were zealous to convey infection, and it only needed a good hard rain, such as is common in Adana at this time of the year, to spread an epidemic of typhoid or dysentery that would have been impossible to combat.

These were the needs of the camps: Cleanliness, milk, bedding, efficient medical attendance, medicines, and pharmacists. All these needs were gradually supplied in the course of the next ten or twelve days.

[Illustration: CAMP LIFE, ADANA.]

The first week’s work after our arrival seemed rather discouraging, although constant progress was made. The camps were rigorously cleaned under threat of short rations. Fortunately the rain held off, and in time the camps became relatively sweet and clean. After a week and a half the refugees began moving back to their ruined homes, and the relief of the congested condition of the camp was a constant lessening of the menace of epidemic outbreak. Until medical force became reinforced, we had to cover the field among us as best we could. Sickness was on the increase, and once the daily reports handed in by the head men of the camp sections showed 400 sick in camp, of whom 75 were reported as “very sick.”

The medical staff at first was quite inadequate for the work of visiting all these sick. The two Turkish doctors and the two pharmacists found the life too strenuous for much more than half a day’s work at a time. It was several days before we were able to do more than make sure that the very sick were seen by a doctor each day.

There was also a shortage of drugs. The remedies needed were few and simple, but they were needed in large quantities. This lack was soon supplied from the drug shops in Mersine. There was a shortage of bottles to put fluid medicines in, and medicines when not taken on the spot were dispensed in finjans, old tin cups, or anything that would hold fluids. One man at the dispensary, whose prescription for castor oil had been filled, in spite of protestations, into his own mouth, when he was told to go finally made clear that it was for his wife that he wanted the medicine.

_Conditions Improve._