220 nature °^ diabetes. We cannot, however, keep him out of the 

 army, for he is determined to go. I told him that he ought to 

 solve the problem of diabetes first. 



IN late August, Ervin reported thus to Wherry on the 

 referred-to "note:" "A M A returned my article — but 

 not so quickly as J Bio-Chemistry." Wherry was now on the 

 trachoma problem in Pikeville. From there, on the typewriter 

 — unusual method for him — he wrote me (August 2, 1918) : 



Things are going rather slowly today so I thought I would 

 practice a little on you. I was glad to hear of your steady stream 

 of patients who thus again exhibit their trustful nature. It is 

 a great thing to have a Personality — if you can get into the 

 right line of work. Even Kaiser Bill's would be useless if he 

 were farming one of these here hills. 



My patriotic work has so far comprised (seems to me, when 

 one thinks slowly and carefully, that there ought to be a z in 

 that word!) culturing and taking tissue from three cases of 

 chronic trachoma. They are coming in slowly. Yesterday I 

 grandly asked for my hotel bill and then discovered that I was 

 not so rich as I had thought! Even so one can't be a spendthrift 

 among these Pikers. If Uncle Sam ever decides to pay me for 

 sticking it out here for two dreary months, I'll be rich. — Marie 

 is in Cleveland today — she was put on that State milk com- 

 mission. I think her appointment exhibited an unprecedented 

 and unlooked-for amount of intelligence. Please excuse these 

 long words but I must get practice by patient persistence. I 

 could have written ten times as much by pen and I have Story 

 Tellers' Pruritus in my desire to relate you a number of facts 

 — but this does look neat and polite, doesn't it? 



You should come down here and get the data on a problem 

 in heredity. On a creek 1 9 miles from here live three families 

 — about 12 households of from 3—12 members each — all of 

 English strain. They have always lived here and have always 

 intermarried. They average two born deaf-and-dumb per 

 household. There is also one paralytic idiot among them. — 

 Two days ago one of the little girls in the hospital who had 

 been blind from trachoma for three years, opened her eyes and 



