THE SANATORIUM
Toward the end of November an old Scotsman, a member of my barracks
(No. 5), was returned to camp from the sanatorium in Charlottenburg.
I questioned him about the place. It appeared that no desperate
illness was necessary to get there, as long as one was willing to pay
for oneself instead of coming down upon the British Government funds
ordinarily provided for that purpose.
This institution was a private medical establishment known as Weiler’s
Sanatorium. The camp administration, by now in our own hands, had made
arrangements with the proprietors to receive and treat such cases of
illness or ill-health as could not be treated adequately in camp, where
the accommodation in the infirmary, measured on civilized standards,
was of the roughest.
Having a big scar on my left thigh, the only reminder of a perfectly
healed compound fracture many years old, I believed sciatica a likely
complaint to acquire. Except in extreme cases no observable changes
take place in the affected limb, and the statement of the patient
is the only means of diagnosis. Forthwith I developed a gradually
increasing limp. With it I got grumpy and ill-tempered, the limp
preventing me from taking my usual exercise, and this soon had its
effect.
At regular and short intervals I went to see the doctor. To start with,
I got sympathy from him, and aspirin. But nothing did me any good,
though I admitted to an occasional improvement when the weather was
fine and dry. At last I was taken into the _Schonungsbaracke_ and put
under a severe course of sweating. I stuck it out, but came dangerously
near throwing up the sponge before I was released at the end of a week
of it. By that time I had made up my mind that my sciatica ought to be
cured, at least temporarily.
I kept away from the doctor for some time, but after a fortnight,
during which my limp had gradually increased again, I was back in the
surgery. He admitted that under camp conditions a lasting cure, even
of a mild case like mine, was hardly to be thought of; but since the
Schonungsbaracke was full, there was nothing for me “but to stay in
bed as much as possible” and to swallow aspirin. This treatment suited
me excellently well.
I kept hanging about the surgery complaining mildly until the first
days of February, when the weather was rotten. I had a serious attack
then. I knew the Schonungsbaracke to be still full, and this gave
me the opportunity of asking to be transferred for treatment to the
sanatorium.
My case being considered urgent, I left the camp the same afternoon,
accompanied by a soldier and a box-mate of mine who had volunteered to
carry my luggage--for I was unable, of course, even to lift it. With
somewhat mingled feelings I looked my last upon Ruhleben for many a
long day.
My new home had originally been intended for nervous cases only--a
private lunatic asylum, to put it bluntly. The arrangement with the
camp authorities for the treatment of all kinds of ailments among
a population of over four thousand was taxing its capacity to the
utmost. So many of our men were there at this time that they not only
filled the original institution but were housed and treated in several
dwellings leased by the proprietors in addition to the asylum.
This was a large building with an extensive garden at 38 Nussbaum
Allee, Charlottenburg. The appellation “Nussbaum Allee” distinguished
it from the other houses, of which there were four, if I am not
mistaken. I forget their names, however, with the exception of “Linden
Allee.”
There were two classes of patients, whose food and accommodation
differed according to the amount they paid, or which was paid for them
by the British Government through the American Embassy. First-class
treatment cost at that time twelve marks per day exclusive of medicines
and special treatment. Without exception the expense had to be defrayed
by the patient himself. In the second-class eight marks per day was
charged. Neither class could expect private bedrooms for this, except
where infectious ailments or other medical reasons made separate rooms
imperative.
I had offered to pay my own expenses, to avoid delay by having my case
referred to the American Embassy. It was a matter of indifference to
me what class I was put into. The points of comfort I was looking for
were easily opened windows, etc. I liked fresh air at any time, but now
was particularly impressed by a theory of mine, that fresh air could be
admitted in sufficient quantities only by windows not too high from
the ground and large enough to admit, or rather to give exit to, a
fairly bulky man.
The windows looked all right, but, from my point of view, they were
_not_. They had diamond panes set in cast-iron frames; and even if they
opened, a dog could not have got out of the aperture. All the corridor
doors were kept constantly locked. There was no passing from one part
of the building to another without the help of a warder or a nurse. The
idea of having to sleep in the same room with six or eight people, one
or two of them seriously ill, did not appeal to me. One of them was
always sure to be awake at night. Straightway I applied for first-class
treatment, for this would get me sent to the “Linden Allee Villa,”
where these lunatic-asylum precautions would probably be absent.
I was taken there in the course of the following morning. My assumption
proved correct, for things were different. Twelve patients nearly
occupied the available accommodation. The staff consisted of only a
nurse and three servant girls, and no military guard was about the
place. The biggest bedrooms contained three beds. A garden surrounded
the house, accessible through at least three doors and a number of
windows of the ordinary French pattern. A low iron railing separated
the garden from the streets, which in this part of the town were very
wide, and which frequently had two causeways, lined with trees, and
divided by stretches of lawn and thick shrubbery.
Not far from “Linden Allee” a big artery ran right into Berlin.