malaria was spread; this Sir Ronald Ross after laborious work proved to be true. Castellani was another Tropical expert who lived in the hotel and was responsible for introducing the
^ threefold simultaneous
^ immunization of typhoid, para-typhoid and dysentery. Staying in the hotel also was the mother of Owen Nares, the matinée idol of these days, who was herself something of a poetess. As in most hotels in war-time, strange and suspicious characters appeared from time to time. I remember three, supposed to be a brother and sister and maid escaped from Russia; someone remarked that the maid looked very like the brother and sister. They were very good-looking and the sister, accompanied by a forbidding bull-dog, used to dine delicately on a grape and a glass of champagne. She also had a parrot and when one day the trio disappeared, Polly was left to foot the bill.
There were a few air raids even in those days and from the roof of the hotel one night I saw a glowing light falling from the sky; it was the first Zeppelin being brought down. A piece of shrapnel once came through the old roof of one of my wards. The daylight raid was rather exciting and it was hard to believe that the buzzing planes, looking like a swarm of flies, might really drop something dangerous; on this occasion the hospital was showered with bits of burnt paper from the near-by General Post Office which got a hit.
The Medical Officers used each
^ to act once in eight days as Orderly Officer for 24 hours and slept at the hospital. She dealt with anything that occurred during that time such as convoys, did the night round for the whole hospital and the dinner round asking for "Any complaints?" I well remember one wintery night when a convoy of 300 arrived; as the ambulances circled the courtyard the ground became more and more slippery and so did the floors of the lifts and it was amazing how the girl stretcher-bearers managed to keep their feet with their heavy loads.
※It was a red-letter day for the hospital when Dṛs Murray and Anderson were honoured by the King for their services by the bestowal of the C.B.E. On the day when they went to the Palace they were escorted by a bodyguard of doctors and orderlies and accompanied by their Highland Terriers, Black and White, who of course had to wait at the gates until their mistresses reappeared when they were all photographed together.
Christmas of course seems to bring more gaiety and good cheer to hospital than anywhere else and on that occasion the orderly officer had no need to ask whether there were any complaints about the dinner; each medical officer had the duty and pleasure of carving the turkey
