TCD MS 3416 page 82
[November 1916]
[win]dow you will not smell it”. The fact that he might cause the drain to be cleared out naturally never occurred to him. How could one cope with such people. The Sanitary Inspector to Government arrived, by name Jeosif Bey, he made an inspection of our houses, our Medical Officer poured forth a bevy of complaints. The Inspector, being with the Comdt pretended to know no French and everything therefore had to be translated into Turkish, which rather cramped our style, he however admitted that the houses were insanitary & asked us to make the best of it- “as we should not be here long” – a truly evasive answer typical to the Turk. A few days later, however, he was caught by himself by our Doctor who took him into our four houses and having pointed out the disgraceful sanitary arrangements and an officer who was washing outside at the water spout for want of no better place, said “Would you expect to find such arrangements made for you were you a prisoner of War in England” the Inspector was obliged to say “No.”
Colonel the Hon Coventry was at that time down with typhus fever, this fact & the fact that we were so overcrowded was brought home to him. That Sanitary Inspector left Yozgad about Nov