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#13
Jan 13, 1944

dear mother, dad andsis

No!s 24 (12/19) and 26 (12/24) and a letter dated the 27th all arrived today. There were newsy and good to get. There are always long waiting periods with no mail-- and then a batch comes at once. It seems that v-mails sent from home here arrive somewhat faster than the air letters. They're not nearly so gratifying since they are so short, but if you'd send one every once in a while it might help to fill in the empty days when no letters come at all.

You're anxieties about tropical diseases are without reason. Tropical diseases are by no means a scourge on this island decimating the military population. The are few in number, not high in incidence and for the most part very mild in their effects on the individual's health. The most common variety of infectious and communicable disease is the ringworm in its thousand and one varieties. This is by no means a tropical  disease--- it came over on the same boat with the soldiers. Since it spreads mostly through the intimate contacts that comes with people living in dormitory conditions, and since I'm relatively isolated with my own tent and towels, I haven't gotten any of it. The next most important is malaria. This is widespread --- but with increasing application of malarial control measures, the incidence of new cases is falling rapidly. Malaria is, for practical purposes, neither a fatal nor a chronically debilitating diseases. Most all cases are sooner or later cured without treatment. Those which persist in recurring time and time again produce only the occasional flare-ups which give the patient an episode equivalent to the flu. Of somewhat more serious aspect is the variety of typhus fever endogenous to these parts known as tsutsugamushi's disease. But the over ll incidence of this disease is extremely low and of the very few cases which do occur, the mortality is only 5%. This is less than what is occurring in your own influenza epidemic right now in the states. Cholera, typhoid fever, the dysenteries, elephantiasis, and tropical sleeping sickness are not seen here at all.

By and large the general level of health locally is extremely high-- and the chances of developing infectious disease is less here than it is at home. The most serious afflictions come from battle casualties and from the psychological burden living in such frustrate surroundings for long periods of time. To the former, I have not yet been exposed. As for the latter, m spleen is to tough ever to succumb to such a situation. M own heal th is perfect; I have xxxxx contracted no diseases and I have no fatalistic anticipations in that regard.

Battle casualties from new britain are of course evacuated to new guinea hospitals. I xxxx see them every now and again when I get up to hospital. for obvious reasons, I can't tell anything about them --- but modern medical procedures -- including