190
DONALD C. BOWIE
a patient of ours. He drew our rations from the store and cooked for us for a time, but I came to consider that the rest of the hospital could feel that the members of our mess were doing better than their fellows. Our rations had of course been weighed and issued by the steward and conformed exactly to the scales in general use. I suppose the mess did benefit in that the cooking was done for a small number and for that reason was less liable to the bad days that others experienced. Because of this advantage, I stopped all separate cooking for the staff officers' mess early on, and thereafter we drew cooked food from the kitchen like other messing units and in due course, also like them we drew our uncooked rice from the store and had it cooked in the main kitchen.
Another problem that beset us was the distribution of the small quantities of extras like peanut butter, syrup etc., received from our Hong Kong friends usually, or from the Red Cross. One method would have been to issue at once the total amount to which each member of the hospital population was entitled and then leave him to use his stock as he wished. I was drawn to this solution which would make every man responsible for using the extra delicacy as he wished, but in the end, up till 1945, we issued the total entitlement in small quantities daily over a number of days, each issue being enough to flavour the rice dish or a meal. The decision to issue these substances in small quantities was made in the early days when shortages were acute and deficiency diseases were to be seen on all sides. One aim was to avoid the acquisition by individuals of a stock they could not always guard and which would be a temptation for others to steal. The other aim was to make it as difficult as possible to sell any part of a patient's nourishment for cigarettes, which some did. This policy of small issues was not accepted by many without protest, but in the circumstances of the time I believe it was the right one. In Kowloon in 1945 in the easier times then prevailing we issued his total entitlement of such foods to each man in bulk.
We had a community rightly watchful over its interests, particularly its own nutrition, for there before its eyes existed evidence of the results of an inadequate diet. Occasionally the concern of individuals showed itself in a rancorous manner and from time to time, especially in the early days though remarkably infrequently, anonymous letters were slipped into my office drawing attention to alleged shortcomings on the part of members of the staff for whom