View allAll Photos Tagged Quetta
THE QUETTA FORT & THE QUETTA CITY 1870'S. FROM THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS SATURDAY APRIL 11TH 1885. THE STRUCTURES ON THE FORT WERE DESTROYED BY THE BRITISH IN 1900 ; THE FORT BEING CONVERTED INTO AN ARSENAL ( ORDNANCE DEPOT). THE BRITISH WERE IN POSSESSION OF QUETTA BY LATE 1876 SO THIS SKETCH MUST HAVE BEEN MADE IN 1870'S OR EARLIER, AS NO BRITISH ENCAMPMENTS CAN BE SEEN. IT COULD EVEN HAD BEEN MADE DURING THE BRIEF CAPTURE OF QUETTA BY THE BRITISH IN LATE 1830'S. THE ORIGINAL CAPTION IS " QUETTA : THE MOST ADVANCED BRITISH MILITARY STATION TOWARDS AFGHANISTAN ".
On the penultimate day of service 72 running between Fleet and Aldershot, Stagecoach Fleet Buzz Dart 35210 (GX56 KWH) is seen at Quetta Park.
The HCC bus cuts see the route diverted at Fleet to run instead to Farnborough (broadly replacing the withdrawn 30). There is no replacement on the Fleet to Aldershot section, and the link between the two towns is lost.
Combined with the withdrawal of the 77, Quetta Park will have no bus services at all.
The bus has come along the south eastern side of the green here, and turned right onto the south western side, where the bus stops are. It picked up a passenger here who's just about visible.
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The Hants CC bus cuts from 4th January 2015 see major changes to service 72.
From Reading, at Elvetham Heath Turning Circle, it will turn around back to the main road, and run via Reading Road North to Fleet Oatsheaf, then right into Crookham Road and a U-shap via Coxheath Road, Gally Hill Road, Aldershot Road and Reading Road South back to the Oatsheaf, then up Fleet High Street (the current route runs through Elvetham Heath itself, then the rail station to Fleet High Street). The U-shape takes in parts of Church Crookham, partially replacing the 30 (being withdrawn) there, but not Zebon Copse.
From Fleet High Street, the new 72 is diverted to run to Farnborough via Ancell's Farm, Fleet Road, West Heath Roundabout, West Heath Road, Prospect Road, Prospect Avenue (past the Sixth Form College) and down Farnborough Road to Farnborough Kingsmead. This partially replaces the 30 on the Fleet - Farnborough section, although only hourly instead of the current half hourly. The 72 won't serve Whetstone Road Shops or Minley Estate; these will be served by new Farnborough circular service 9 (again, hourly, and interworked with the 72).
The current route sees the 72 run after Fleet High Street & Oatsheaf down Reading Road South, around Quetta Park and through Hale, Heath End and Weybourne to Aldershot. This section will be withdrawn with no replacement, leaving no public transport link between Fleet and Aldershot, and Quetta Park with no bus services at all.
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Leipzig Barracks, Quetta Park, Fleet, Hampshire.
I have photographed Hanna lake (Balochistan) several times but this one was different. Usually I have photographed it in either morning or day light. This time, it was right before dusk when the sun hit its last rays on the surrounding mountains. I was mesmerized.
On the penultimate day of service 72 running between Fleet and Aldershot, Stagecoach Fleet Buzz Dart 34414 (GX53 MWE) is seen at Quetta Park - in another example of the LEDs only coming out when there were shadows in the way...
It's running along the north western side of the green here - a road with no name according to Google Maps and my A-Z, although the Flickr map does seem to think it's call Naishes Lane.
The HCC bus cuts see the route diverted at Fleet to run instead to Farnborough (broadly replacing the withdrawn 30). There is no replacement on the Fleet to Aldershot section, and the link between the two towns is lost.
Combined with the withdrawal of the 77, Quetta Park will have no bus services at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Hants CC bus cuts from 4th January 2015 see major changes to service 72.
From Reading, at Elvetham Heath Turning Circle, it will turn around back to the main road, and run via Reading Road North to Fleet Oatsheaf, then right into Crookham Road and a U-shap via Coxheath Road, Gally Hill Road, Aldershot Road and Reading Road South back to the Oatsheaf, then up Fleet High Street (the current route runs through Elvetham Heath itself, then the rail station to Fleet High Street). The U-shape takes in parts of Church Crookham, partially replacing the 30 (being withdrawn) there, but not Zebon Copse.
From Fleet High Street, the new 72 is diverted to run to Farnborough via Ancell's Farm, Fleet Road, West Heath Roundabout, West Heath Road, Prospect Road, Prospect Avenue (past the Sixth Form College) and down Farnborough Road to Farnborough Kingsmead. This partially replaces the 30 on the Fleet - Farnborough section, although only hourly instead of the current half hourly. The 72 won't serve Whetstone Road Shops or Minley Estate; these will be served by new Farnborough circular service 9 (again, hourly, and interworked with the 72).
The current route sees the 72 run after Fleet High Street & Oatsheaf down Reading Road South, around Quetta Park and through Hale, Heath End and Weybourne to Aldershot. This section will be withdrawn with no replacement, leaving no public transport link between Fleet and Aldershot, and Quetta Park with no bus services at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Road with No Name, Quetta Park, Fleet, Hampshire.
The first snow of the season that hit the province of Balochistan and the city of Quetta on January 15, 2017 broke the previous 12-year-record of snowfall in Quetta Pakistan
Hanna Lake (Urdu: حانا جھيل) is a lake near Quetta city in Pakistan and is one of the main attractions in the city. The lake is located a little short of the place where the Urak Valley begins and 10 km from Quetta. Golden fish in the lake comes swimming right up to the edge of the lake.
"THE QUETTA SPHINX" LOCALLY MORE WELL KNOWN AS THE "MUM" (QUETTA BALOCHISTAN).IT WAS IN REALITY A WAR MEMORIAL FOR THE FALLEN BRITISH SOLDIERS OF THE ANGLOAFGHAN WARS OF LATE 19TH CENTURY.AND WAS LOCATED IN A CHRISTAIN CEMETRY,STILL EXCITING, IN FRONT OF THE QUETTA FORT ON ZARGHOON ROAD.IT WAS MUCH FEARD LOCALLY AS A SORT OF A DEMON WHO DEVOURED ANY1 PASSING THERE ALONE AT NIGHT.UNFORTUNATELY IT WAS DESTROYED BY RELIGIOUS FANATICS AS A REACTION TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BABRI MOSQUE IN INDIA IN 1980's.
Famous Tv host and actress Miss Sofia Malik reading SMS in her mobile during participation in 12th annual Convocation ceremony of Balochistan University of Information Technology Engineering and Management sciences held on Thursday, December, 22, 2016 at BUITEMS premise in Quetta Pakistan.
Quetta, once an isolated and out of the way military cantonment, is today a thriving capital of the province of Baluchistan. Located at a height of over 5000 feet above sea level, it is surrounded by barren mountains with several peaks towering to a height of over 10,000 feet. The Quetta Valley itself, although not profusely vegetated, is turning greener by the year. In the summers, fruit laden orchards present a very attractive sight. Although a small city, Quetta has over the years acquired the typical hustle and bustle of a provincial metropolis with a population of over 1.6 million. Both the city and cantonment continue to modernize at an equally fast pace. Quetta has a dry and healthy climate, with no factory smoke to pollute fresh and invigorating mountain air. Winters in Quetta are severe and last from mid October to end March. The temperature during winters, falls to minus 15 degree Celsius necessitating the use of heavy quilts, blankets and heating arrangements. Springs in Quetta are normally pleasant and last from end March to end April. Summers are mild by Pakistani standards and normally stretch from May to August. The maximum temperature during the day seldom exceeds 41 degree Celsius during the hottest period. Evenings and nights are usually cool. Autumn comes in the months of September and October. Snow generally stretches from December to March.
#401 Explore
This is a nature's marvel. This mountain range around Quetta, Pakistan portrays a human lying down with its head towards the left and going leftwards. It is commonly known as "Sleeping Beauty" - doesn't it look like one?
A moment of silence, on top of a hill, above everything, and a beautiful sunset...
This is what I experienced yesterday while taking photos of the Quetta city from Mehr Abad (Mariabad) area..
QUETTA, PAKISTAN August 10 2016: Volunteers and official of PAKISTAN Red Crescent Balochistan Branch light the candles in memory of martyrs of 8th August 2016 Bomb blast on lawyers after the killing of Balochistan Bar Association President Anwar Bilal Kasi in Civil Hospital Quetta.
"THE QUETTA SPHINX" LOCALLY MORE WELL KNOWN AS THE "MUM" (QUETTA BALOCHISTAN).IT WAS IN REALITY A WAR MEMORIAL FOR THE FALLEN BRITISH SOLDIERS OF THE ANGLOAFGHAN WARS OF LATE 19TH CENTURY.AND WAS LOCATED IN A CHRISTAIN CEMETRY,STILL EXCITING, IN FRONT OF THE QUETTA FORT ON ZARGHOON ROAD.IT WAS MUCH FEARD LOCALLY AS A SORT OF A DEMON WHO DEVOURED ANY1 PASSING THERE ALONE AT NIGHT.UNFORTUNATELY IT WAS DESTROYED BY RELIGIOUS FANATICS AS A REACTION TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BABRI MOSQUE IN INDIA IN 1980's.
Urak Valley
The Urak Valley is 21 kms away from Quetta City. The road is lined on either side with wild roses and fruit orchards. Peaches, plums, apricots and apples of many varieties are grown in this valley. The waterfall at the end of the Urak Valley, which is full of apple and apricot orchards, makes an interesting picnic spot.
Ahead of Urak Valley, there is almost an hour hike towards Walitangi, the track has a cold water stream on one side and rockymountains on the other. Loin's Face is on the track of Walitangi.
Quetta, Pakistan. August 30 2016. famous Pashto Singer Gul Panra singing during the closing ceremony of All Pakistan FC Balochistan T-20 Cricket Tournament 2016. conduted by Frontier Corps "FC" Forces at Ayoub Cricket stadium.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Nayab (4), outside her home in Quetta district, Baluchistan province, Pakistan.
© UNICEF Pakistan/2013/Asad Zaidi
A portrait of Mariam at the drop in centre. She is from Ferozabad. There is a case study on her. Quetta, Pakistan. February 27, 2012.
Sir Henry Holland of Quetta balochistan
The surgeon in charge of a mission hospital on India's
wild North- West Frontier was jarred awake, the night of
May 30, 1935, by a thundering roar. The room rocked and
pitched, to the sound of fearful crashing and the screams of
patients in his nearby hospital Before he could struggle
from his cot amid falling debris, a huge weight knocked him
unconscious.
This was the Quetta earthquake, one of the most disastrous
in world history. In a few seconds it reduced the city of
60,000 to rubble, killing outright some 24,000 of its people.
The 60-year-old missionary came to consciousness amid
the deathly silence following the quake. Then, suddenly, he
heard a shout through the darkness. It was his son, also a
doctor and his assistant, who too had miraculously escaped
death. The surgeon painfully lifted his head and called out
in his high-pitched voice, "For Pete's sake, Harry, get me out
of here. There's work to be done!"
Frantically the son tore at the hill of rubble, and in 15
minutes the two were organizing rescue efforts. The hos-
pital compound with its facilities for 130 patients, two op-
erating theaters, laboratory, large dispensary and X-ray plant
built up from almost nothing through 35 agonizing years of
effort was a shambles. Many of the patients and hospital
staff members were dead or dying. The missionary surgeon
limped about, furiously bandaging the wounded, directing
the removal of hundreds of corpses, giving thousands of
injections to stave off an epidemic of cholera.
Meeting perils was nothing new to Dr. Henry Tristram
Holland. When I saw him, in 1957, at 82 years of age he was
still meeting them and bringing Christian profit from them.
A man small of stature and puckish of countenance, his un-
spectacular appearance 'belies his spectacular record and
repute as one of the world's foremost eye surgeons. During
his 56 years in the border country between Afghanistan and
what is now Pakistan, he gave back sight to more than
100,000 persons.
In recognition of his life-service to the tribes people of the
North- West Frontier, and for his contribution to ophthal-
mology, Holland was knighted in 1936 by King Edward VIII
the only surviving missionary knight since Sir Wilfred
GrenfelTs death.
In Sir Henry's youth there was nothing to forecast him
in the role of either knight or missionary. Son of an Anglican
country parson, young Henry decided to "go into medicine
to get out of the church." While studying at Edinburgh
University, however, he fell in with students intending to
become medical missionaries. Moreover, many of the medi-
cal faculty, he found, were devoted Christians, active in the
University Christian Medical Association. Here he was im-
pressed by such speakers as Henry Drummond, propounder
of love as 'The Greatest Thing in the World," and Charles
Studd, a famous cricket player. One day he noted over a
mantel a cryptic motto, "Not for ours only." Asking its mean-
Ing, he found it was from I John 2:2 "And he is the propitia-
tion for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins
of the whole world." Responding to the summons to selfless
living, Henry finally applied to the Church Missionary So-
ciety, a foreign missions arm of the Church of England.
Holland offered to go to Nigeria, but was told, "We're
sending you to Quetta/' Mystified, he demanded, "Where's
that?" He soon found out. The North- West Frontier, with
Quetta as its southern bastion, was a rough land of Kipling-
esque people and storied history. Its rocky desert wastes, bar-
ren hills and bloodstained passes such as the famed Khyber
had for 3500 years known the tread of invading armies. In
this no man's land he found a racial mosaic of nomadic Bra-
huis, swarthy Baluchis, marauding Pathan tribes devoted to
blood feuds and banditry. The Frontier tribesman was a
strange medley of the swashbuckling brigand cruel, treach-
erous, fanatical and the brave, proud, individualistic lover
of freedom, deeply religious according to his lights. Tall,
bearded, with deep-set fiery eyes and hawk noses, the Pa-
thans disdained all laws laid down by modern governments,
ruling themselves by tribal "Customary Laws" that were old
before America was discovered.
Because their land could not produce crops, the tribesmen
"farmed" the passes by raids on passing caravans. Almost
every family had a blood feud going. The tribes were no-
madic, grazing their camels, flocks and herds in the Baluch
and Afghan uplands all summer, then streaming through the
passes toward the plains of India in the winter. To keep
these hordes of free-ranging peoples in check, strong British
garrisons policed the Frontier.
The mission at Quetta, started in 1886, was one of a chain
of stations begun not by missionaries but by British officers
and enlisted men with an enlightened idea of Christianity's
responsibility in colonial rule. They raised funds among
themselves, petitioned the Church of England to send out
clergy and doctors, then supported them for years.
Among such Christian soldiers was Major General Sir
Herbert Edwardes, who stood one day at Khyber Pass and
warned his men not to think "this immense India has been
given to our little England for no other purpose than our
aggrandizement. Empires come into existence for purposes
of the world's Creator."
Young Henry Holland reached Quetta in May 1900, to
find a plague raging in Karachi, with people dying in the
streets. On the long 400-mile journey to Quetta, he traveled
by pony, camel and on foot across the hot sands of the Sind
Desert, trekking with the tall, hawk-nosed tribesmen carry-
ing their homemade rifles with curving stocks inlaid with
brass and their great curved swords bright with semi-pre-
cious stones.
The mission station seemed to him an audacity, a tiny but
brave assertion that Christianity cares for both body and
soul. Such caring, he soon learned, could be costly.
Aroused by mullahs, the powerful Moslem religious lead-
ers, tribesmen often went on rampages, murdering Afghan
converts to Christianity, Indians and British as apostates in
Islam's eyes. To the fanatics, the killing of an "infidel" was a
pious act. Prior to Holland's coming and during his first years
on the Frontier, scores of missionaries and their converts
provided Moslem warriors with such passports to paradise.
Converts to Christianity suffered even more wholesale re-
prisals. On the Frontier it was a proud Moslem boast that
"no Afghan turned Christian has ever returned to his own
country and lived/' One convert, son of a Moslem judge in
Quetta, was seized, spirited in chains to Kabul, the Afghani-
stan capital, cruelly beaten then given a chance to recant.
When he refused, one of his arms was hacked off, then the
other. Still refusing to recant, he was beheaded. However, a
witness to the man's martyrdom later wrote Holland: "The
remembrance of the light and peace in Abdul Karin's face
has haunted me through the years. Tell me the secret of it."
This man too was converted and later executed for his
new-found faith.
Holland prayed nightly that *1 may scorn the way of
safety, so that Thy will may be done." To his hospital staff
he said: "If we Christians cannot out-live and out-love any
other religion, we don t deserve to win."
He left no patient in doubt as to the motivation behind
his treatment. Before each operation he would say a short
prayer, endeavor to make every healing technique a "testi-
mony to the tender mercy of God." Asked why he mixed
Christian evangelization with medical treatment, he snapped:
"I am a missionary doctor. The Christian medical man who
says everything about the body and nothing about the soul
is not doing his full duty."
When a prominent Moslem leader hotly demanded why
the mission tried to convert his people, Holland deftly took
the wind out of his angry sails by saying, "We love your
people, and so we want them to have the best-in religion
as in medicine. Since we think Christianity the best of reli-
gions, we cannot be selfish with it any more than we can
withhold from those we love the best medical skills and
medicines we have."
When the 25-year-old doctor first came to Quetta his hos-
pital boasted only a few beds and almost no modern equip-
ment. His own experience in surgery, as a student at Edin-
burgh, had been limited to opening a few abscesses and
presiding at a birth or two. But such was the pitiful plight
of the people, particularly during plagues and epidemics,
that he soon was treating almost all ailments in the medical
glossary. He wrote home: "If you ever see P.C. after my
name, it won't mean IVe been made Privy Councilor; it'll
stand for piles and cataracts!"
Cataracts particularly. This ailment was common along the
Frontier, and the pathos of the blind touched him deeply.
He soon discovered not only a special facility but his greatest
satisfaction in curing blindness. And as word of his skill got
about, tribespeople came in droves to be cured.
One day an old couple, both completely blinded by double
cataracts, stumbled into his compound. They had not seen
each other for years. Holland operated, then placed them in
beds side by side in the hospital ward. Days later, when the
bandages were removed simultaneously, they looked at each
other with first unbelief, then sheer enchantment. As the
two old people went into each other's arms, tears of joy
flowing down their faces, Holland wept with them.
Whole families would arrive at the compound, bringing
along children, animals, chickens. A patient quartered in one
of the wards would tether his camel outside, and one or
more relatives would bed down beside him. Some tribesmen,
who had never slept under anything but a tent roof, balked
at the wards. For the sake of tradition and family solidarity,
Dr. Holland always accommodated them. One family, with a
small son needing a bladder stone removal, slept in their
bullock cart with the bull in the compound outside. In a
temporary shelter serving as a pile ward, the doctor one day
found a horse tethered next to a patient. Humorously, he
asked if the horse suffered from the same complaint and
let him stay.
The Quetta hospital, growing without plan or design, be-
came a helter-skelter assortment of annexes and scattered
family wards. After the earthquake, the present modern,
reinforced-brick 200-bed hospital, with four operating the-
aters, delivery room, X-ray laboratory and nurses' training
school was erected mostly from funds raised personally by
Sir Henry during a tour of England and a public appeal put
on in his behalf by the London Times.
A further impressive monument to Sir Henry's skill with
both lancet and religious diplomacy is the famous Shikarpur
Hospital 200 miles southeast of Quetta. One of the largest
eyes clinics in the world, it can care for as many as 600
patients at a time.
Shikarpur, an exclusive Hindu city, had been closed tight
to Christian missionaries. But in October 1909, Holland was
approached by Seth Hiranand, a Shikarpur banker and phi-
lanthropist who for some time had been sending patients to
Quetta. "Why do you not come to my city?" he asked. "I
will provide many patients, pay all expenses."
Arriving in the forbidden city, Holland found hundreds of
blind and sick swarming about the grounds of Hiranand's
estate. He set up an operating theater on the large scimitar-
shaped verandah and went to work, fighting flies and dust
and clamorous patients. He stayed three weeks, performed
more than 400 operations. Before he left, the banker brought
him a large bag of rupees and a proposition. "Doctor Sahib,"
he said, "as you have seen, there are many here who need
your skills. You will come again next year perhaps annu-
ally?"
Cannily, the little surgeon replied: "I will, on condition
that you build a suitable hospital, housing for patients, and
underwrite all expenses." The banker agreed readily. Squat-
ting on the floor, Holland drew preliminary plans in the
verandah's dust. That done, he arose. "There's one other con-
dition," he said. "If I come, I must have the right to preach
Christianity here."
When the conditions of the project became known, a city-
wide uproar arose. A big mass-meeting denounced the plan
for Christian infiltration. Hiranand sat through the angry
speeches, then rose to win the day by quietly saying, "If
you will find a surgeon as great as the Doctor Sahib, one
who will heal our blind and sick, and yet not preach Chris-
tianity, I will agree with you. Shall the thousands of our
people who need treatment be denied it by our prejudices?"
Getting news of the victory, Holland chuckled: 'Til bet
Shikarpur is the first city in the world to be opened to Chris-
tianity at the point of a cataract knife."
Next year, he found in that city a beautiful little hospital
ready for him, with two well-equipped operating rooms,
plentiful housing accommodations and 500 new patients
waiting. The reputation of the Shikarpur clinic, in full-tilt
operation each January-February, spread rapidly, until Hol-
land and his associates were performing as many as 1200
cataract operations and 2000 other major surgical procedures
during the six weeks the clinic operated. Leading ophthal-
mologists traveled across the world to observe the Holland
techniques.
Among them were many Americans. One, Dr. Derrick Vail
of Northwestern University Medical School, tells of finding
Sir Henry's aura everywhere about the hospital and its
compound. "I was not fully prepared to grasp at once the
striking character of this dynamic and expert eye surgeon.
But in a few moments his simple and compassionate nature,
radiating from his inner warmth, embraced me and I knew
that here was a very great and good man."
Another American took Holland back to the States with
him for a vacation in 1928, pressed him to join his staff to
ultimately succeed him as head of one of the Midwest's
largest eye-ear-nose-and-throat hospitals. When Holland
shook his head, the eminent doctor offered a fabulous salary,
saying archly, 'Tm told that every man has his price, Sir
Henry." The missionary surgeon laughed. "I'm afraid you've
been misinformed. You can't put a price tag on a fellow's
love for his people."
During his long career, he was offered many other high
medical posts. Always he turned them down.
Holland early found that his compulsion to bring sight and
healing to the needy could not be contained by Quetta and
the several out-stations he established. Nor could his adven-
turous spirit. With British political and military officers he
argued that if he could go with them, "throwing pills about
and applying the proper sort of ointments," he might "help
to reduce the temperatures" of troublesome tribesmen.
He proved his point one day at a remote village on the
Baluch-Persian frontier where a team of British agents had
to deal with a difficult border bandit named Dost Mahomed.
The bandit, whose murdering and pillaging had thrown the
whole area into chaos, rode up on a prancing stallion and
with five of Bis sub-chiefs inarched into the desert tent for
the meeting, rifles in hand, bandoliers of cartridges criss-
crossing their sunburned chests, surly and defiant.
While the negotiations went on, getting nowhere, Holland
slipped out, slung a medicine chest over his shoulders and
crossed the frontier into the walled city where 1500 of Ma-
homed's followers were encamped. For hours he treated the
sick, and when he returned to the place of conference 300
of them came with him, singing praises for the help he'd
brought. The bandit came out, still fuming at the Britishers'
demands. But when he saw the crowd of his own people,
happy over Holland's ministrations, he and his men laid down
their guns. The British agents used the truce to depart hur-
riedly. Afterward, Holland was told, "Dost Mahomed came
to the conference determined to loll the whole party. You
stopped him cold."
Alone, or with a mission colleague, he went out among
the tribespeople in areas where seldom a white man had ever
been seen. Through the craggy hills and sunblistered valleys,
he would travel for days on pony back, or on a riding camel
"the most uncomfortable conveyance known to man." When
he came upon a cluster of glowering Pathans, he would dis-
mount to treat diseases, patch up wounds, perform delicate
eye operations.
For these proud people, whom powerful British forces
could not conquer, he conceived a lasting affection. And
they for him. He moved through their forbidden areas un-
armedand unharmed. While he performed his operations,
the tribesmen would gather around curiously. He employed
them as screens from the dust and sand, put fans in their
hands to keep the flies away.
To win the tribesmen's confidence, lie joined them in rid-
ing, fishing, shooting. In appreciation for his services, they
would come at day's end to his campfire, offering with great
dignity gifts of their poor best: a joint of mutton, fruit, a
hand-made rug, a trinket.
On one tour, he had just finished treating a tribe and was
about to go when news came that a band of bloodthirsty
Afghan outlaws had slipped over the border and were in the
vicinity. But, he was assured, "They will not harm you."
Later he learned that his friends had sent outriders ahead to
throw around him an invisible circle of protection.
Wherever he went the tribesmen would seek him out.
On one occasion, while on a brief holiday in the Himalayan
foothills, a group of Pathans came leading a woman with
double cataracts, They pointed to her, saying simply, "Doctor
Sahib . . ." The only instruments he had with him were a
pair of iris forceps and a cataract knife. But from the wife of
a companion he borrowed nail scissors, tweezers and a cro-
chet hook; from a hairpin he improvised an instrument to
hold the eye open. Then, sterilizing his strange instruments,
he went to work. Five days later, when the bandages were
removed, the operation proved a complete success.
During another trip deep into the desert he came to a
small oasis, found a cluster of Baluchis hovered over a man
groaning in pain and near death. The man had fallen 30 feet
from the top of a date palm tree, badly ruptured his urethra;
his bladder was distended almost to the bursting point.
Having only primitive surgical instruments with him, Hol-
land punctured the bladder, contrived a drainage tube from
the metal case of a clinical thermometer, smoothed it down
with files and emery board, and bandaged him up. Being
60 miles from the nearest railhead, 140 miles from the
nearest hospital, the little doctor hoisted his patient onto a
camel for the long desert trek, breathing a prayer that sepsis
would not set in. Arriving at the railroad station after 24
hours with his patient, he found that the next train was not
due for 36 hours. Keeping his patient alive by sheer will
power, they reached the hospital two long hot days later.
Holland operated again, found the wound aseptic, his man
on the road to recovery. "God is great!" chorused the Ba-
luchis.
His reputation spread among the highly placed as well as
the lowly. He treated the Rajah of Shigar at his capital 200
miles from the border of Tibet, on one occasion was flown
to Kabul to save the sight of the King of Afghanistan. One
day he received a message from one of the most powerful
of the Frontier chieftains, the fabulous Wali of Swat, noted
for his antipathy for missionaries. But his need was greater
than his intolerance: he was going blind would the Doctor
Sahib come?
Holland traveled by foot through the passes beyond Mala-
kand, where the Wali and his people had attacked the British
and where Sir Winston Churchill served as a war corre-
spondent. Finally he came to a setting like a page out of
The Arabian Nights. After saying the first Christian prayer
ever heard in the palace, Sir Henry operated successfully on
the Waifs eyes. Afterward, they became fast friends, often
went hunting together.
Not the least of Sir Henry Holland's achievements for
Pakistan and the North- West Froatier is his role in bringing
Moslem women into the 20th century. When he first came,
women had their place in the rigid seclusion of '
Wives were bought like cattle. Hospitals were "men only 9 '
institutions. Sir Henry's mission established a hospital for
women in the Quetta compound, convinced husbands that
it was an economic waste to allow a wife to wither and die.
One of his weirdest tasks was the replacing of women's
noses. Extremely jealous, the Pathan's tradition allowed him
to chop off a wife's nose at the slightest suspicion of infidelity.
Later, discovering her innocence, he was likely to regret his
action, bring her to the hospital for repairs. One, when told
that the operation would cost 60 shillings, hesitated until
the doctor asked, "Is it not worth the money to have a wife
with a nose?" The tribesman replied, "That's a hard ques-
tion, Doctor Sahib. You see, for 75 shillings I can buy a new
wife!"
Sir Henry also gave Moslem and Hindu womanhood an
important boost up the social and professional ladder by his
program for training nurses and hospital technicians. In
1900, the idea of any proper Moslem girl working outside
the home, let alone in a hospital, was abhorrent. Holland,
always hard pressed to staff his hospital, put constant stress
on the dignity of serving one's fellows in need, on a people's
responsibility to help care for its own.
For years the backbone of his nursing staff came from the
outcast and depressed classes, many of them second genera-
tion Christians. His mission's nursing schools were the first
to give women not only training but graduate standing and
certification. Today the daughters of Pakistan's best families
are being trained as doctors and nurses.
For more than a half century Sir Henry worked toward the
the day when his hospital could be taken over completely by
indigenous leaders. "It is always a missionary's happiest
achievement/* he says, "when a Christian institution can be
handed over to nationals, and is no longer a work done for
them but by them."
In 1939 Sir Henry reached his society's retirement age, 65
with no hankering to quit. Shortage of doctors in World
War II gave him the excuse to ask for an "extension for the
duration." He managed to extend the extension to eight
years.
In the spring of 1948, when he was 74, having seen his
son Ronald succeed him at Quetta, he took what he thought
was his final departure from the land and people to whom
he had given his life. But he had hardly got back to England
muttering darkly at the "foolishness of a system that retires
a man in his prime" when word came that tribal chiefs had
made up a purse to bring him back for a period each year.
Ever since, he has spent his winters on the Frontier, his sum-
mers going up and down England recruiting missionaries and
stimulating British youth to selfless service.
Speaking to an assembly of London young people in
1956, he chided them for modern youth's preoccupation
with security, their hesitancy toward pioneering. "The grave
is secure," he said, "but terribly dull. Serve your age well
and security will take care of itself!"
When someone once asked why, with talents that would
have brought him vast material gains, he gave himself so
selflessly to healing the hurt of mankind, he replied, "Re-
member what a chap named Mallory said when he was
asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest? 'Because it's
there!' Thaf s my answer, too."
Quetta's mission hospital was originally established in 1886, and had been rebuilt after the earthquake. In the courtyard there were small cottages forming the caravanserai where patients were nursed by relatives who also took care of food and cooking.
Throughout the day, electric amplifiers and loudspeakers alerted us to the call of the muezzin, reminding our Christian medical island of the dominant culture that lapped against the walls of the hospital compound. Purdah (seclusion) and veiling were still upheld in Quetta despite its cosmopolitan community. The hospital had a segregated women's section, the zenana wards.
The hospital served the city and the region, catering particularly to the trans-border nomadic Pathans who moved down through the Bolan Pass to the southern plains during the winter, returning to the hills of Afghanistan during the summer. Accordingly, these tribal nomads had two opportunities each year to benefit from Western medicine.
Cataracts and neglected chronic diseases were common presentations, as was diarrhoea. I myself suffered diarrhoea on several occasions and progressively lost weight during my stay. Faecal tests positive for blood and/or amoebae sentenced one to amoebicides; negatives dictated sulfas, to which my bugs responded.
The diarrhoea was surely related to the town's contaminated water supply. Irrigation water from the city's reservoirs flowed through the streets alongside the footpaths. Using removable paddles, the waterman selectively diverted the flow into separate open channels for individual sections of the town on given days. Not surprisingly, the water reaching our vegetable gardens in the hospital compound was murky. This public health issue didn't seem to agitate either the city authorities or, in general, the Western doctors!
In winter, the hospital ran an outreach clinic at Shikarpur, 200 miles to the south. Many such clinics, known as "cataract camps", were held on the Indian subcontinent under missionary auspices, foreshadowing the Fred Hollows Foundation.
Cataract surgery and other procedures
Every operation began with a Christian prayer. For the anxious patient, this was extra premedication. Local anaesthesia was used for cataract operations — patients' eyelids were kept open during the procedure with a pair of locally made fork retractors, handheld by the assistant, one of the male nurses trained in the hospital's own program. Graefe section with conjunctival flap was standard, progressing to intracapsular extraction. I carried out over 100 cataract procedures in my 10 weeks, and many plastic operations on eyelids and tear ducts. I treated one patient with retinal detachment. I also assisted at numerous general surgical procedures and outpatient clinics.
The first snow of the season that hit the province of Balochistan and the city of Quetta on January 15, 2017 broke the previous 12-year-record of snowfall in Quetta Pakistan
Hanna Lake (Urdu: ہنہ جھيل) is a lake near Quetta city in Pakistan and is one of the main attractions in the city and a reservoir was Constructed by the British Empire.
In 1894, a small action dam Surrpull (Red Bridge) was constructed on main Urak road for converting of water into Hanna Lake coming from the Zarghoon Mountains range, of streams, snow melting and rains through main channel. This channel nowadays needs repairs and is wasting water and recently[when?] the water level is deadly low, up to three feet, and thousands of fish are in danger. There is also a water channel which was constructed the same time by the British to convert the snow and rain water near spin kaarez coming from Murdar mount to surrpull for filling of water in this lake. This channel was destroyed by the heavy flood in 1976 and still not constructed and all the snow and rain water is going waste till now and resultant the Hanna Lake was fully dried in 1999 to January 2005. If Hanna Lake Development Authority (HLDA) the custodians of Hanna Lake did not perform any action to bring water through surrpull the lake will be soon dry again. The lake is located a little short of the place where the Urak Valley begins and 14 km from Quetta. The beautiful Hanna Lake was built in the time of British Empire in 1894. Golden fish in the lake come swimming right up to the edge of the lake. There is a lakeside restaurant with picnic tables shaded by pine trees. At one end, the irrigation dam rises out of the depths like battlements of a fort, and on the eastern part the well known Hayat Durrani Water Sports Academy (HDWSA) the only rowing, canoeing, kayaking and sailing training center in Balochistan Province.
Kayaking in front of the historical Bridge wall of Hanna Lake constructed by Great Britain in 1894.
Hanna Lake is very attractive for holidaymakers, and is crowded with hikers and campers in holidays. You can hire a boat and paddle on the lake and round the island in the middle.
By Henry Holland
Henry Holland describes the destruction and rebuilding of Quetta in 1935 when an earthquake hit that town
"Those peak years in hospital, which gave such promise for the future, ended with tragic suddenness. The devastating earthquake in the early hours of May 31, 1935, marked the end of an era in Quetta and in the life of our hospital. Quetta town, which had taken over 50 years in building, was laid flat at a stroke. In less than 30 seconds some 20,000 people were killed, buried in the debris of the city, and outside Quetta itself the earthquake was responsible for the loss of a further 5,000 people. There has been no known instance of such heavy loss due to an earthquake in so restricted a space. Since the disaster came in the middle of the night, the majority of those overtaken and killed were buried under their houses with no chance of escape; over 90 per cent of the corpses found were in bed.
Besides the terribly high death roll, some 10,000 people were injured and a similar number rendered homeless and destitute.
The earthquake was a shaking horizontal movement which some have compared to the shaking of a rat by a terrier. The consequent destruction of property as well as human life was on so great a scale that officers who had been through the war said it would have taken weeks of a severe bombardment to have reduced the town to such a state. There was hardly a building left standing, and in our own mission compound the patient uphill work of very many years crashed in ruins about our ears.
We had experienced slight earth tremors before this, and in 1930 a considerable earthquake some 50 miles south of Quetta was a forceful reminder that we were living in an earthquake area. But there had been nothing unusual to warn us of the terrible catastrophe looming on this oppressive evening in May 1935. Only the persistent barking of dogs throughout the city in the early hours witnessed to a fact brought home to us later, that the animal creation seems to know by instinct when natural disaster, such as an earthquake, is impending. But for the human inhabitants of Quetta city, this had seemed a day much like other days. For us it had meant the usual routine in hospital, though for our Christian congregation in Quetta this Ascension Day was specially marked by a baptism service in St Luke’s Church when a young Sikh - a friend of one of our male nurses - was admitted to the Christian Fellowship.
I was late in getting to bed that night as I was a guest at the Residency, where the Queen’s Birthday was being celebrated. The earthquake broke on the sleeping city at 3:00am. I was soundly asleep, and all I can remember was the sound of a fearful crash.
Before I could move I felt a heavy weight fall on my body, burying me, all but the right side of my head and my right hand. I realized then that I was pinned down, unable to free myself or to move hand or foot. I think the first thought that came to me was that very possibly I was the only one left alive in the house; there were three of us in the bungalow at the time, Harry, Dr Iliff and myself. Imagine my joy and relief when I heard my son’s cheery voice: "Dad, are you all right?" I replied: "Yes, God is good, I am all right, but I cannot move."
When Harry realized that I was completely pinned down, he and two others tore their way through wire gauze over a window and came to my aid. They had great difficulty in digging me out and extricating me, for they had to work in complete darkness and could only feel their way. Later, when I was almost freed, someone arrived with a hurricane lantern. The rescue work was fraught with danger, for following on the main earthquake shock numerous minor shocks continued throughout the night, bringing down more masonry and rubble. While I was gradually being extricated from the debris I felt a rather severe shake and exclaimed: "Hallo, there’s another one." To which Harry replied cheerily: "Only a small one, Dad."
At last I was pulled out, but I was suffering from severe pain in my back and could neither help myself nor others. I was placed on my back in the garden.
I had had a remarkable escape - and so had Harry, as he told me afterwards. Having jumped out of bed at the first shock, he dived underneath the foot of it just before three of the four walls of his room thumped down, one after another. It seemed a providential prompting which had caused him to do this, as he emerged without a scratch, and ran round the bungalow shouting for me.
Within 20 yards of our bungalow, 82 of the 126 patients at that time in the hospital were killed, with many of their friends and relatives. My son and I might well have been among the number. It happened that my wife had left for England just two weeks before.
Although the loss of life among the patients was so great, it is very remarkable that our staff losses in the men’s hospital were few - Miss Magill, our dispenser and pharmacist; the elder daughter of our Indian colleague Dr Luther; the wife and three of the four children of Jelal, our assistant compounder. Paddy Magill was killed by one of the subsequent earthquake shocks to which I have referred. Her bed was discovered empty, but she was nowhere to be found. Not till three days afterwards was her body discovered in Miss Wheeler’s room, buried under a wall that must have fallen on her when, with no thought for her own personal safety, she had gone back to look for and to help her colleagues with whom she shared the bungalow. We were reminded of the words spoken of our Lord: "He saved others; himself he could not save", for had she not gone to the other part of the bungalow to save her colleagues she would be alive today. The two nursing sisters, Miss Manwaring and Miss Wheeler, were both rescued. Miss Wheeler had miraculously escaped through a small hole in the roof, her only injury being a sprained ankle. Miss Manwaring was suffering from cuts and bruises, as well as shock, when she was extricated from the wreckage. She had wakened as the earthquake began, jumped out of bed and was then violently thrown to the foot of the bed, the roof and walls falling in at the same time
At the Zenana Women’s Mission Hospital, three-quarters of a mile away, the loss of life was as great as at our own hospital and worse among the staff, two Englishwomen being among those killed. Dr Hooton, who was in charge of the hospital, had a remarkable escape. She was sleeping in a small room at the top of the hospital bungalow; when the crash came, the floor collapsed under her and she came down with the falling masonry, but escaped unhurt. Her sister, who had come on a visit, was killed, also Sister Miller, who had only just arrived in Quetta. I well remember Dr Hooton coming over to our hospital in her nightdress with a blanket thrown round her, saying: "I don’t know what has happened to my sister and Miss Miller - I can’t find them anywhere." Their bodies were recovered later in the morning. Dr Hooton herself did magnificent service subsequently for the injured at a camp hospital 30 miles away.
At 6 o’clock on the grim morning following the earthquake Sister Manwaring and I were taken off in an ambulance to a British military hospital, where we received every attention. As I lay on my bed in that hospital where I was dry-docked for repairs, I wondered if our mission hospital would ever be rebuilt. News kept filtering through to me of all who had lost their lives in our hospital. The outlook was not - to say the least of it - encouraging.
When I was extracted from the ruins of my bungalow and taken up to the military hospital, I discovered that I was minus dentures, spectacles and a pipe. It is interesting that quite a considerable item of expenditure under relief work was that of supplying dentures to those who had been buried and rescued! I was more fortunate. I sent my bearer to search in what had been my bathroom in the hope that he might find somewhere under the rubble a tin mug containing what were extremely valuable to me - my dentures. Within two or three hours he came back, triumphant, bearing them in his hand! With regard to spectacles, I was able to get them replaced; and as to the pipe, the wife of the Commanding Officer of the British military hospital came down and said: "I have a second-hand or maybe third-hand pipe, may I give it to you since there are no shops here?" I may say I accepted it with great thankfulness. So pipe, dentures and spectacles were in a very short space of time restored to me.
As soon as I was able to get out of bed and walk about in the hospital - I think it was at the end of the second day - I found my way to the big ward in which were lying the British women casualties, some of them so seriously injured that they were never able to leave that tent alive: I had no Bible with me and could not have read it if I had, as I had no spectacles then.
I walked round the tent and found many of those brave women keeping back the tears with difficulty - not so much on account of their own injuries as for the dear ones they had lost. I longed to be able to give them comfort, and from one end of the tent I recited the beautiful twenty-third Psalm in the Scottish version, "The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want." One could have heard a pin drop as I spoke the words and followed them with a short prayer. I realized that the Psalm had once again given comfort to many, as it still does.
Meanwhile, within a very short time of the disaster, rescue work was being organized on a big scale in Quetta.
By 5 o’clock on the morning of the earthquake the city was full of troops, who had come down to help. The first British officer to reach the city was Major Howe of the Royal Signals. He had been rudely wakened by the crash with which hundreds of brick chimney stacks fell on the corrugated-iron roofs. He at once called two orderlies and went down to the city with a lorry and two men on motor-cycles. He told me afterwards that when he reached the Bruce Bridge which joins the city to the military area he turned on the headlights of his lorry and those of the motor-cycles and saw that Quetta was completely wrecked. He could not see a single human being moving, and realized that there had been a terrible loss of life.
Very soon the troops in the cantonment were roused, and under General Henry Karslake were moved down to the city. It was estimated that by 7:00am some 7,000 men from the cantonment were hard at work. News of the disaster and urgent requests for help reached Shimla, Lahore, Karachi and other cities by wireless. Within a very few hours, doctors, hospital sisters, nurses and equipment arrived in Quetta by air. Meanwhile some three or four thousand casualties had already been taken to the cantonment hospital by ambulances and lorries.
One remarkable fact of the earthquake was that the cantonment escaped any serious damage. Had the military station suffered as had the city, the death roll would probably have been doubled. The chief reason the cantonment escaped was that the barracks and all military buildings were to the north of the city and were built on gravel and rock, whereas the city stood on alluvial soil. There was a clear line of demarcation between the cantonment and the city in the shape of a watercourse which ran between the two and, after heavy rain, became a rushing torrent.
Perhaps I can indicate the restricted area of the earthquake when I say that if from my home I had driven a golf ball barely 200 yards towards the cantonment, that ball would have reached a part of Quetta almost untouched by the earthquake. Except in the Air Force quarters, which were near the watercourse dividing the military from the civil areas, there were no lives lost in the cantonment; in the Air Force lines some fifty or sixty British troops were killed.
Devastation and rebuilding
But for the presence of the Army, the roll of the dead in the Quetta earthquake would certainly have been twice as great. There is no doubt that many civilians owe their lives to the prompt and efficient first-aid given by the Army. General Karslake was in charge of rescue operations, and without the help of the officers and men under his command the fate of hundreds would have been too tragic for words. Day and night for three days the troops worked in the city, rescuing thousands of lives. It was a merciful provision also that two military hospitals were standing and ready to help with the injured. Over 3,000 injured were taken into the Indian military hospital, and a very large number to the British hospital also. By the end of the second day after the earthquake, just under 6,000 casualties had been dealt with. How they worked, those doctors, sisters and voluntary workers, to try to relieve the terrible suffering!
During the four days before the injured were evacuated, the surgeons were working night and day and gave heroic service - not sufficiently recognized by the government, in my view. I think especially of George Ledgard, who was operative specialist in Quetta, and then went down to Karachi to continue operating there. He certainly was one who deserved national recognition.
On the fourth day after the earthquake, Quetta city was evacuated and surrounded by a military cordon. Within a few days the city had a big barbed-wire fence all round, and was floodlit by night; this was to prevent the inevitable looting which would have followed.
The work of rescue was really magnificent. Besides rescuing thousands of the civil population and taking the injured to the military hospitals, the work also involved the burial or cremation of 6,000 dead bodies. Then there were the homeless crowds to be cared for. Ten thousand refugees were accommodated in tents on the Quetta racecourse, and were fed by the military. To provide 10,000 rations a day was no small item of organization, and this rationing system was kept up for about three weeks, until most of the refugees had been sent down country, free tickets being given to them all.
After four or five days in the military hospital with a very stiff back and neck I had completely recovered, and was appointed Chief Medical Officer of Balochistan. I was thankful to be on my feet again and ready for duty in relief operations.
Meeting the emergency
In my new appointment after the earthquake, my chief work was to look after the injured and also to reorganize what was left of the medical personnel in Quetta. When Lord and Lady Willingdon and the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Philip Chetwode, and Lady Chetwode arrived 10 days after the disaster, I took them round the ruined city. It was clear that we were involved in an immense job of relief and reorganization to meet this great emergency
As chief medical officer I was not only in charge of the rescue work and making provision for the casualties; it was also my responsibility to take the necessary steps to prevent epidemic diseases from spreading in and around the city. The Army health authorities in Shimla feared that an epidemic might break out in Quetta, for at that time many thousands of bodies were only partially buried in the city; moreover, the hospital accommodation of 400 beds was utterly overwhelmed by the sudden influx of more than 5,000 patients. The authorities therefore gave orders that all the injured should be evacuated from Quetta to hospitals in Karachi and Punjab.
When the news reached the patients and the injured in the military hospitals that they were to be evacuated at 6:00am the next day, most of them were only too thankful, but those among the local inhabitants who were severely injured begged, with one voice, that they might be allowed to stay in Quetta. For them, places like Karachi and Lahore were unknown territory. As I was then in control of the relief work, I went to the senior military surgeon who had received the orders for the evacuation of the injured and explained to him that the women were terrified out of their lives at the thought of going to what to them was an unknown land. He replied that he had his orders from government headquarters in Shimla and had to carry them out.
I then returned to the attack and informed him that the local government were prepared to give tentage and to arrange for camps outside Quetta for the wounded and injured local inhabitants. He still seemed adamant, then finally said to me: "Well, Holland, are any of them your girl friends?" I said: "All of them!" To which he replied: "Well, you can have them."
Word was taken to the patients in the hospitals, and had they been able to do so they would have jumped for joy.
Colonel Houghton, the senior medical officer, told me that those who were to be left behind should have some distinguishing mark otherwise they would all be evacuated when the ambulance staff came round to move them in ambulance lorries. Here I received the fullest cooperation and help of the ladies at the staff college. I explained the position to them and said that if they could be at the hospital by 4 o’clock next morning with a supply of blue cotton bands, these distinguishing arm-bands could be put on the local patients who were to be left behind. Mrs Cyril Noyes led the party; the blue bands were duly arranged and when the ambulance staff came to move those who were to be evacuated they could see at a glance which of the patients had to be left behind. The evacuees were then taken away in ambulances and lorries to the refugee tent-hospital in Pishin.
I shall never forget the expressions of gratitude from the patients who were allowed to stay in their own country. Many of them had not long to live, for there were a large number of cases of broken backs. Before the injured were evacuated from the military hospitals in Quetta, a large number of British officers’ wives spent the day, and many of them part of the night, in helping to look after five to six thousand patients. To many of the Muslim and Hindu patients it was a revelation to find that colonels’ and majors’ wives were bringing them their bed-pans and urinals. They fully realized that the British were out to help them in every possible way, and I know that many who were helped and cared for by British women at that time will always look back on the experience with grateful hearts.
One of the most dramatic and moving incidents in connection with the earthquake occurred on the last day before the city was closed and all troops were withdrawn. Just as three British privates were leaving the ruins of a building, one of them thought he saw a movement beneath the debris; to their surprise they found a Hindu, still alive but terribly bruised and knocked about. He could not move, but apparently was suffering no pain as a result of shock. The three lifted him out with the utmost care, put him on a stretcher, and he was then taken to the British hospital. As soon as he was in bed the doctor came to examine him. The injured man said in the most perfect English: "I was taken out of the city by three Christian soldiers who lifted me with the greatest care and gentleness. I demand the faith which prompted that kind action."
The chaplains were told and they found that he was determined to learn about Jesus Christ before he died; he knew he had not long to live. Eagerly he drank in the truth of the Christian faith. One day as the chaplain was talking to him, he noticed that the man’s hands were held across his chest, and asked him the reason. "I am clinging to the Cross," he replied, "nothing else is of any avail. My Master is always before my eyes, and as long as He is there it does not matter what happens, whether I live or die." When Bishop Barne came up from Lahore he baptized him with the name of Nathaniel, and a few days later he died rejoicing in his newfound faith.
Within 10 days of the earthquake two camps were set up for the injured who wished to remain in their own country; each was about thirty miles from Quetta. At Mastung, to the south of the city, Dr Iliff, a member of our staff, was in charge of a relief hospital of 80 patients, and working with him were our hospital "boys". At Pishin, to the north, another tent-hospital, for both men and women, was in the joint care of Dr Hooton for the women and my son Harry for the men. Although this relief work was carried on under the auspices and at the expense of the government, the staff consisted entirely of workers from the mission hospitals. Thus, though our mission buildings had been destroyed, the work lived on in the help that the mission staff were giving to the people in their great need. When in the late summer Dr Hooton went home, Dr Gertrude Stuart (who had retired just before the earthquake after 27 years’ service in Quetta) came out at once to undertake relief work in the villages during the winter. Her deep love for the people, which called out their love in return, gave her a special capacity to get alongside the women and to bring them spiritual comfort as well as physical relief, in the name of Him who is the true source of all comfort and strength.
Post-earthquake measures of relief, whether for the injured or in the interests of public health, had to be taken almost simultaneously. One of the most pressing problems I had to face immediately after being appointed Chief Medical Officer was how to deal with the fly-infested bodies which were still lying about in the city unburied. I realized the great danger to public health of fly-borne infection. The question was how to dig out and remove those half-buried bodies. While I was pondering ways and means, there arrived from Lahore, to my joyful surprise, Squadron-Leader Hogg with 25 Rover Scouts. I had known Hogg for some time; he was the life and soul of the scout movement in the Punjab. He greeted me with the very welcome news: "I have come from Lahore with these Rovers to report for duty." I asked him what they were prepared to do and what they felt their special work should be. He replied: "We are prepared to do anything even to clean out latrines."
Being at that time Provincial Commissioner of Boy Scouts in Balochistan, I was deeply touched and thankful the more so since these lads represented all creeds, Christians, Muslims, Parsees, Hindus, including the highest caste of all, the Brahmin. I told the Squadron-Leader of the most urgent task before us: to rid the city of the menace of hundreds of bodies, many of them half-buried, some lying in the open, a prey to the swarm of flies which might well cause the spread of disease. If he and his Rovers would recover the bodies from the debris and bury or burn them, they would be doing a splendid job of work.
He said at once: "Of course we are ready to do that - we will start straight away." They all took it in their stride, accepting a task from which many might have shrunk, and carried on with this work of burning and burying bodies for a matter of two months. They not only carried on, but did their work with cheerfulness, so great was their devotion to duty. When at the end of the first month some members of this troop had to return to their work in Punjab, the vacancies were quickly filled by other volunteers from Punjab and Sindh.
Despite their different religious faiths, the Rovers lived together, fed together and were co-partners in this courageous piece of social service. They were naturally faced with certain difficulties regarding the disposal of the bodies, particularly when the condition was such that it was impossible to say whether they were Muslims or Hindus. Whereas for Hindus cremation is the customary form of disposal of their dead, and burial is objectionable, the exact reverse is true for the Muslim. When the Rover Scouts found bodies in such an advanced state of decomposition that it was impossible to say whether they were Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs, they had to use their judgment, often being guided to some extent by the area of the city where the bodies were found. Several thousand were buried as Muslims outside the town, and others were cremated.
One morning I was working with Hogg on the outskirts of the city, actually in the cantonment. We were digging for bodies in the sweepers’ quarters. I saw two of the Rovers dig out and lift from the ruins the body of an "untouchable", a sweeper. Hogg turned to me and said: "Do you see the man who is doing that? He is the son of one of the most distinguished Brahmin pundits in Punjab."
I was amazed. It showed me what the scout promise can do, and how fine is the spirit of service which it inspires. That a Brahmin should take part in this work of lifting out dead bodies, carrying them to the lorry and either burying or cremating them hardly seemed possible. For a Brahmin even to touch a dead body especially that of a low-caste worker was considered defilement.
When I wrote to tell the great "B.P.", Chief Scout, of the grand work that the Rovers had done, he and Lady Baden Powell were delighted to hear of their wonderful service to Quetta. It is a fine tribute to the spirit of service with which Squadron-Leader Hogg and Hardial Singh had inspired their Rovers that this difficult work was ever attempted, let alone carried out so successfully.
In those early days after the earthquake all possible measures were taken to reduce the risk of epidemics and the spread of disease. The director of health services sent us a large contingent of medical officers for preventive work among the people in the villages around Quetta. Thousands of injections were given against cholera. All the surrounding villages were visited and the patients were treated, with the result that no serious epidemic of any kind followed the earthquake disaster.
One minor though troublesome form of infection resulting from the earthquake was that of leishmaniasis or "frontier sores", sometimes called "Delhi boils". The infection is carried by the sandfly. Usually the sandfly attacks cattle rather than human beings, but it so happened that among the ruins of Quetta there were no cattle; the sandflies, having no cows to bite, turned their attention to the human race. Dr Hooton and my son Harry, for example, suffered from a great many of these sores. Where they are not treated early and successfully, they leave behind them very bad scars; but gradually the cases of leishmaniasis lessened as the heaps of rubble were removed.
The A.G.G., Sir Norman Cater, was one of the many whom the sandflies attacked. He went down to Sibi for a week and the surgeon sent down a nurse to look after him and give the appropriate treatment. The A.G.G. was a bachelor, and an amusing story was told regarding the nurse’s arrival at the Residency. Sir Norman’s English-speaking personal servant caused great amusement by going into the drawing-room, which was full of British guests, just before dinner, and announcing: "Please sir, your midwife has arrived!"
Amid so much that was grim and grave in the days through which we had been living, we were thankful for the sudden sparks of humour as well as the shining courage and unselfish service of so many in our midst.
Resurrection of a hospital
From the moment that I recovered from the first shock of being buried in the ruins of my home and work I felt quite certain that my life had been restored to me in order that I might continue this same work for which I had originally come out to Quetta to win the peoples of the Frontier for Christ and to serve them in His name.
In a matter of weeks and months we could say: "The work has not ceased." For Pishin and Mastung were soon well established as temporary centres for medical missionary service. When patients arrived having walked many days’ journey to see me, it gave one fresh heart to plan and look forward to a new beginning in a new Quetta when that should prove possible.
As one tried to see ahead at the outset of this post-earthquake era, finance loomed large on the horizon. To find the money needed for a new and if possible earthquake-resisting hospital was a formidable task. Yet I knew that at all costs we must stand by the people whom we had come out to serve. It must never be said that we had deserted them: Earthquakes or no earthquakes, I felt sure that somehow we should be enabled to carry on. My own urgent representations to the Church Missionary Society at home that withdrawal of the medical mission at this juncture would appear to the people to be base desertion were strongly backed by the local government and by the Bishop of Lahore. It was our unswerving opinion that rebuilding must be undertaken as soon as circumstances would allow.
At first I was at a loss where to begin. But from the outset those of us who remained of the hospital staff made it a matter of prayer that the way would be found to raise the money to build a worthy hospital. Quick action was called for. Within less than a fortnight of the earthquake an appeal was issued for financial aid to rebuild.""
A doctor’s experience of an earthquake
Way back in 1983 when the Aga Khan University was established and I was called upon to put together its Medical College Library, the founding dean, Dr Cheever Smythe, gave a working formula for collection development. It was 5:3:2 - you should add books in that order - five clinical books, three basic sciences books and two general books.
Obviously clinical and basic books and their selection was the domain of specialists, teachers and practitioners, but the budget for two general books was to be discreetly used in acquiring reference books like medical dictionaries, medical history, encyclopaedias, etc. In this area my special craze was medical biographies - biographies of such doctors who would serve as role models and inspire our young generation to serve humanity with dedication. I could check a long list in any authentic bibliography on the subject but nearer home, I knew about a book called Frontier Doctor by Henry Holland published in 1958. I looked high and low for it and a copy was luckily found in a city library and at once I had two photocopies made of it.
The closing lines of his autobiography that appealed to me most were, "The question of vocation goes deep. It is quite possible to take up medicine as a profession, but that is very different from taking up the medical profession as a vocation. To know that one is ’called’ to be a medical missionary means facing the question of total dedication - which is neither easy nor pleasant."
Sir Henry Holland spent 50 odd years in Balochistan and the Frontier where he established his eye clinics at various points. He landed up in India in 1900 and it was a sad day when he left the country in April 1948, but he still could say, "There was life in the old dog again." He had accolades heaped on him and in 1960, at the age of 85, he was awarded the Ramon Magsasay Award for public service. He was the first British (Pakistan-based) awardee.
The entire autobiography is enthralling but after a few narrow escapes from death, he still survived the May 30-31, 1935 quake to serve the people in Balochistan. A few pages relating to the 1935 incident may be relevant at this time when natural calamity has stricken Pakistan. This should be of special interest particularly to doctors and more so when the time of rebuilding starts. - Moinuddin Khan
Excerpted from
Frontier Doctor: An Autobiography
By Henry Holland
Hodder & Stoughton, London (1958)
Third Impression 1959
250pp
HENRY HOLLAND was born on February 12, 1875 at Durham, England, in the home of his Grandfather Tristram, residentiary Canon of Durham. On the paternal side of his family there were also close ties with the Church of England, his father being a parish priest and his father before him Vicar of Walmer Beach and chaplain to the Duke of Wellington. An aunt, Katie Tristram, who went to Japan as an educational missionary, was the first family link with the mission field.
The dominant influence of his life was his energetic mother, whom he remembers as always on the lookout for a way to help others. It was genial and hospitable Canon Tristram's zest for life, interest
in people and moral courage that also set for the boy a pattern of character to follow. He took example, too, from his father's visits and kindness as a parish priest to every family in the community, whether Churchmen or not.
His travels began in infancy when he was taken to Riga, Latvia, where his father served as English chaplain until the boy was five. The father's next appointment to the parish of Cornhill in north Northumberland brought the family back to the seat of three generations of forebears on his mother's side. The Holland home was on the banks of the Tweed and, though considered delicate, the boy reveled in the fishing, riding, and hunting to hounds afforded by the country life. Later, this experience was to serve him well when he would make arduous journeys to remote parts of Baluchistan on camel or pony.
Tutored by his father and two maiden aunts until he was 11, he went to Durham School for one term and then on to his uncle's school, Loretto, near Edinburgh. Training there was in a Spartan tradition, with high educational standards, daily exercise and much time spent in the open air. His son RONALD also attended this school and three grandsons have followed.
At the end of his last term at Loretto, HENRY went by his parents' arrangement but against his will to a two weeks summer camp instituted to bring the claims of Christ before public school boys. The camp provided a full schedule of exercise and each evening ended with an appeal to the boys to give their lives to His service. He resisted until the last evening before making the decision that revolutionized his life.
Deciding to serve God as a doctor, he enrolled at Edinburgh in 1894 for medical training. Prompted by the example of men he came to know who had chosen a missionary vocation, he joined the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, pledging himself to become a missionary doctor. This step, taken toward the end of his undergraduate study, gave his life a new sense of drive and direction. Advised to interrupt the first year of his medical course after several prolonged attacks of influenza, he had spent a six weeks holiday on the Continent when a Liverpool merchant invited him as a traveling companion on a trip to the United States. Two months later, when his benefactor offered to make him his U.S. representative at what seemed to the college student a staggering sum, he declined the offer. Returning to the University, he entered wholeheartedly into missionary activities and by severe self-discipline was able to graduate in 1899, passing among the first eight, with distinction in both second and final examinations.
The next seven months he spent visiting various colleges and universities in Great Britain and Ireland as Traveling Secretary of the Student Volunteer Mission, a position his elder brother had held when he left Oxford. Professionally, he was later to feel acutely his lack of practical experience on a hospital staff, and, when his two sons decided to join him on the Frontier, they took hospital appointments in England before going abroad.
Dr. HOLLAND had offered his services to the Church Missionary Society shortly after graduation and, in March 1900, still with four months left of his contract as Traveling Secretary, he was called to Quetta, on the remote North-West Frontier of India, to take the place of the doctor shortly going on leave. He had three weeks to prepare for his journey to a place he had never heard of.
Traveling by cramped third class overland to Marseilles, he continued on by sea in an airless lower berth, such as was allotted to second class passengers at the turn of the century. A typhoid inoculation beyond Port Said made him severely ill, and he suffered a virulent attack of the fever seven months after reaching Quetta. From Karachi, he completed the last 400 miles by train, climbing from the dust-thickened air over the Sind desert and plains, through the desolate Baluchistan hills to the upland plateau where Quetta stands, ringed by towering peaks, 5,500 feet above sea level. As he left the plains he began to see large, fierce-looking tribesmen who seemed a piece with the harsh surroundings. His first sight of the city-oasis that was to be his home was memorable—arriving on the 6th of May, the weary traveler delighted in the greenness and profusion of blooming roses.
The medical mission at Quetta, established 14 years earlier, was one of a chain of four along the North-West Frontier originally encouraged by British army and political officers to help keep peace among the tribesmen as well as treat their physical ills. To the first outpatient building constructed in 1889, had been added four wards with 28 beds for inpatients, one operating room and a dark room for ophthalmoscopic work. It was a small but brave assertion of Christian care and compassion in the heart of a hostile land, for killing an infidel as a way to attain Paradise was common practice among fanatical Muslims in those early days.
The Frontier it served was a bleak and isolated land of rugged mountains and great stretches of arid, rocky plains. Apart from the railway to Quetta, there were few roads and only rough trails across the wastelands and through the passes. Excepting the British garrison and government officers at Quetta and the few other stations, the inhabitants were mostly scattered tribespeople who changed their dwellings with the season. Separated by deserts and mountain ranges, the various tribes seldom mixed together. Education in a formal sense was unknown, and there was little desire for schooling among those living in or near the Frontier stations to whom it was available.
Dr. HOLLAND found the hospital in full swing; spring and autumn were the busiest, when caravans could move without hindrance of snow and freezing temperatures or the intolerable summer heat. Among the patients were small-statured Brahui, of supposed Dravidian stock, who came in droves after their winter sojourn to the plains south of Sibi on their way back to the uplands. Tall, hardy Pathans, the Afghan tribes living on the then British side of the border, came down from the mountains to the north. A Pushtu-speaking Semitic people, they claimed descent from the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Baluchi arrived as the weather warmed, from the southern foothills and plains running east from Sibi to the Punjabi frontier. Also a Semitic people and often of fine physique, their language was a form of Persian. Journeying up from the plains were Sindhis and Punjabis.
The doctor was not put off by the Muslim fanaticism, blood feuding and raiding that characterized a part of the tribesmen's way of life. Seeing their strength in adversity and the obvious need for medical attention, he quickly took up the challenge of adjusting to life in entirely strange surroundings.
Work for the young medical graduate began at once. Dysentery and malaria were common ills. Surgical needs were great though limited facilities permitted treatment mostly of hemorrhoids, tubercular glands and cataracts. As he had not had hospital experience, he spent several hours each day working with the doctor he was soon to replace, learning surgical technique. Otherwise learning by doing, he was soon administering treatment for all manner of ailments. Later, he was able to widen his knowledge through visits to hospitals in Kashmir, the Punjab and Sind.
By adhering to a rigorous daily regimen of work and study, he passed examinations in Urdu, Persian and Pushtu and mastered the rudiments of Brahui, Baluchi, Punjabi and Sindhi. Whenever the hospital work slackened, the adventurous doctor made treks into the outlying countryside, sometimes hunting and always learning more about the lives of the tribespeople and their medical needs. Cataracts and eye infections were endemic to the area, induced by glaring heat, searing winds, dust, flies, vitamin deficiency in the diet and calcium-laden water. Perhaps because the plight of the blind touched him most, he developed a special talent for eye surgery. On his return to Quetta in 1907, after a serious illness had necessitated an extended leave, he was given charge of the medical mission.
In the autumn of 1909, a wealthy Hindu merchant and philanthropist invited Dr. HOLLAND to spend the winter weeks treating patients at Shikarpur, in North Sind, offering to cover all expenses. The doctor and his two colleagues refused payment for their services, but agreed to return if the merchant would provide a building for their operative work. The small hospital that was ready the following year has now grown into one of the largest eye clinics in the world, able to care for 600 patients at a time. Though some other surgical cases are treated, the main work is ophthalmic.
Since 1920, some 150 eye specialists have come from India, Pakistan, the Continent, the United Kingdom and the United States to observe and work at Shikarpur. They pay their own traveling expenses and board and room for the privilege of working there. In a mutually beneficial exchange, the visiting doctors have brought the latest developments in surgical technique and themselves had valuable operative experience, performing up to 200 cataract operations in a month's stay, whereas two or three a week would be the average in most clinics elsewhere. Other medical missionaries also have come each year to join in the work. This outside help has meant that four doctors could each operate six hours a day. With such teamwork, as many as 3,000 operations have been performed during one two-month season at Shikarpur, of which 1,400 were for cataracts.
A second clinic was later established at Khairpur, also in North Sind, and for a time a clinic was operated for a few weeks each year in Karachi under the auspices of the Poor Patients' Relief Society. As other doctors joined the mission, stations were set up in the surrounding countryside to which medical and nursing staff were regularly assigned.
The main base was still Quetta, and the hospital there grew steadily, chiefly due to the increase of eye work. Facilities were better adapted to local custom with the addition of wards where patients could be accompanied by relatives with cooking pots. Between 1904 and 1930, 14 such wards were built for patients who would rather pay a rupee a day than go into a public ward; all were the gifts of grateful patients. Similar accommodations for very poor families were provided free. Patients often came from long distances, and to have their relatives with them during convalescence with a family camel, donkey or goat in the courtyard was a natural arrangement they appreciated.
The tradition of service was strengthened at Quetta by the building of a Christian nursing profession and the institution, in 1926, of a full-fledged training program for male nurses. From 1931, the mission hospital also trained a succession of dispensers. An X-ray unit had been purchased, in 1925, with donations from local sirdars and chieftains. By 1934, the number of beds had been increased to 124 and that year inpatients numbered 3,447 and major operations totalled 3,760. With the exercise of much faith and patience in a Muslim environment, old suspicion and distrust had given way to confidence, notably regarding surgery.
All of this painstakingly built physical plant was destroyed, in May 1935, when a disastrous earthquake laid Quetta in ruins, killing some 25,000 people in the city and environs. After five days in a hospital recuperating from a back injury sustained when he was pinned under falling beams, Dr. HOLLAND was appointed Chief Medical Officer of Baluchistan, in charge of rescue work, making provision for casualties and prevention of epidemics. This task completed, the intrepid doctor then faced the problem of reconstruction. "Striking while the iron was hot," he made a trip to England to raise funds. Other support for the Rebuilding Fund came from not then partitioned India. Temporary structures were in operation in 1936 and two years later the first permanent buildings went up. The new hospital was completed on the same site on May 6, 1940, 40 years from the day of his first arrival at Quetta.
In 1936, the doctor had been made a Knight-Bachelor in recognition of the work of the mission hospital and his contribution to ophthalmology. He had previously received the decoration of the Kaiser-i-Hind gold medal and bar and, in 1929, the Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.) in tribute of his service to the tribespeople of Baluchistan.
His medical work on the Frontier meanwhile was becoming a family affair. Effie Tunbridge, the second nursing sister to join the Quetta mission became Dr. HOLLAND's wife four years later in 1910. Their elder son, Harry, joined his father in 1935. The second son, RONALD, born in Quetta in 1914, followed suit in 1940, after completing his medical training at Edinburgh. Marriage interrupted the plans of their daughter, Esme, also to serve on the Frontier. RONALD's wife, Joan, has carried on as a nurse, keeping hospital accounts and becoming an expert anesthetist though, stricken with paralytic polio a year after their marriage in 1940, she has the full use of only one arm and is unable to walk. When malaria, contracted marching through the Burma jungle in wartime, continued to undermine his health, Harry returned to England and, in 1953, started the Oversea Service, a pioneer venture under the auspices of the British Council of Churches and the Conference of British Missionary Societies to spread a sense of Christian responsibility among laymen going to assignments abroad. RONALD has taken his father's place in charge of the medical mission work in Pakistan. Excelling also in general surgery, he is recognized as the most skillful ophthalmic surgeon of the family. He has learned the many languages of Baluchistan and otherwise has carried on unbroken his father's legacy of compassionate service. Though even more patients than in his father's time are treated during the crowded winter months at Shikarpur and Khairpur and during the spring and autumn at Quetta, Dr. RONALD HOLLAND continues to visit the outlying areas. Setting up mobile clinics along the way he, too, performs delicate eye operations and treats assorted other ailments for poor tribespeople to whom no other help is available.
In treating the thousands who come each year to their hospitals and clinics the HOLLANDS developed mass operative techniques that have relevance for surgeons elsewhere who may be called upon to meet large-scale disasters. Where it was no uncommon experience to see 200 to 300 outpatients a day, the choice was made to forego elaborate treatment for a few and take care of as many as possible. Both father and son have done up to 70 cataract operations a day. Records were not as detailed as they would like, but each patient was recorded as to diagnosis, treatment, operation, operator, complications and result. Methods were simplified to the extreme, but the essential preoperative technique has been maintained and postoperative care adapted to the resources available and the mores of the people, proving, for example, that a cataract case can move about within hours after surgery without harmful effect. Despite severe handicaps, these careful adjustments to field conditions have produced excellent results. Though the Shikarpur clinic operates only two months each year, it can record more than 150,000 eye operations, including 80,000 cataract extractions of which 97 per cent have proved successful.
Feeling that the scientific part of their work should be brought before the profession, both Sir HENRY and Dr. RONALD HOLLAND have contributed articles to leading medical journals in India, Britain and the United States and read papers at the Oxford Ophthalmic Congress.
Following partition in 1947, Quetta and Shikarpur fell within the borders of West Pakistan. The hospitals helped through the difficult period of adjustment and now are continuing their good work. Beside the goodwill among the people and the tribal chieftains, based on trust, has been a growing appreciation of the Christian qualities of concern and integrity for which the hospitals have stood through the years.
Sir HENRY's retirement, due according to the rules of his mission society in 1940, was postponed for the duration of World War II and again delayed until conditions were settled enough for him to hand over to his sons and his Pakistani Christian assistant. In those postwar years, he served on Government Commissions, on Church and Mission councils and committees, sharing in the planning of medical policy both for the Church and the Government of India.
Finally leaving active service in March 1948, he was promptly called back again to treat the King of Afghanistan. Two years later and until his own eyesight began to fail in 1956, grateful tribesmen, led by a Baluch chief, made up a purse to pay his traveling expenses for an annual visit to his hospitals. During the remainder of those years, he traversed England raising funds, recruiting missionaries and encouraging young people to think less of themselves and more of service to others. Now 85, he came to Pakistan again this year to celebrate his golden jubilee among his beloved tribespeople.
Simple and unassuming in manner, this father and son bely their splendid record as two of the world's foremost eye surgeons. Both have been offered professional opportunities with high standing and handsome stipends but have chosen to devote their skills as medical missionaries among an isolated people. Of those who come to work or be treated at their hospitals, no question is asked as to their faith, but the doctors' own lives are a continual Christian challenge to all who know them.
Each day's work is preceded by prayer. In operating for hours on end visitors, too, have sensed the therapeutic value of the spiritual atmosphere thus created. To the HOLLANDS, prayer and healing go together, for healing to them "speaks" the same message as Christ's teaching—the love of God in whose sight every individual is important.
HENRY HOLLAND was born on February 12, 1875 at Durham, England, in the home of his Grandfather Tristram, residentiary Canon of Durham. On the paternal side of his family there were also close ties with the Church of England, his father being a parish priest and his father before him Vicar of Walmer Beach and chaplain to the Duke of Wellington. An aunt, Katie Tristram, who went to Japan as an educational missionary, was the first family link with the mission field.
The dominant influence of his life was his energetic mother, whom he remembers as always on the lookout for a way to help others. It was genial and hospitable Canon Tristram's zest for life, interest
in people and moral courage that also set for the boy a pattern of character to follow. He took example, too, from his father's visits and kindness as a parish priest to every family in the community, whether Churchmen or not.
His travels began in infancy when he was taken to Riga, Latvia, where his father served as English chaplain until the boy was five. The father's next appointment to the parish of Cornhill in north Northumberland brought the family back to the seat of three generations of forebears on his mother's side. The Holland home was on the banks of the Tweed and, though considered delicate, the boy reveled in the fishing, riding, and hunting to hounds afforded by the country life. Later, this experience was to serve him well when he would make arduous journeys to remote parts of Baluchistan on camel or pony.
Tutored by his father and two maiden aunts until he was 11, he went to Durham School for one term and then on to his uncle's school, Loretto, near Edinburgh. Training there was in a Spartan tradition, with high educational standards, daily exercise and much time spent in the open air. His son RONALD also attended this school and three grandsons have followed.
At the end of his last term at Loretto, HENRY went by his parents' arrangement but against his will to a two weeks summer camp instituted to bring the claims of Christ before public school boys. The camp provided a full schedule of exercise and each evening ended with an appeal to the boys to give their lives to His service. He resisted until the last evening before making the decision that revolutionized his life.
Deciding to serve God as a doctor, he enrolled at Edinburgh in 1894 for medical training. Prompted by the example of men he came to know who had chosen a missionary vocation, he joined the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, pledging himself to become a missionary doctor. This step, taken toward the end of his undergraduate study, gave his life a new sense of drive and direction. Advised to interrupt the first year of his medical course after several prolonged attacks of influenza, he had spent a six weeks holiday on the Continent when a Liverpool merchant invited him as a traveling companion on a trip to the United States. Two months later, when his benefactor offered to make him his U.S. representative at what seemed to the college student a staggering sum, he declined the offer. Returning to the University, he entered wholeheartedly into missionary activities and by severe self-discipline was able to graduate in 1899, passing among the first eight, with distinction in both second and final examinations.
The next seven months he spent visiting various colleges and universities in Great Britain and Ireland as Traveling Secretary of the Student Volunteer Mission, a position his elder brother had held when he left Oxford. Professionally, he was later to feel acutely his lack of practical experience on a hospital staff, and, when his two sons decided to join him on the Frontier, they took hospital appointments in England before going abroad.
Dr. HOLLAND had offered his services to the Church Missionary Society shortly after graduation and, in March 1900, still with four months left of his contract as Traveling Secretary, he was called to Quetta, on the remote North-West Frontier of India, to take the place of the doctor shortly going on leave. He had three weeks to prepare for his journey to a place he had never heard of.
Traveling by cramped third class overland to Marseilles, he continued on by sea in an airless lower berth, such as was allotted to second class passengers at the turn of the century. A typhoid inoculation beyond Port Said made him severely ill, and he suffered a virulent attack of the fever seven months after reaching Quetta. From Karachi, he completed the last 400 miles by train, climbing from the dust-thickened air over the Sind desert and plains, through the desolate Baluchistan hills to the upland plateau where Quetta stands, ringed by towering peaks, 5,500 feet above sea level. As he left the plains he began to see large, fierce-looking tribesmen who seemed a piece with the harsh surroundings. His first sight of the city-oasis that was to be his home was memorable—arriving on the 6th of May, the weary traveler delighted in the greenness and profusion of blooming roses.
The medical mission at Quetta, established 14 years earlier, was one of a chain of four along the North-West Frontier originally encouraged by British army and political officers to help keep peace among the tribesmen as well as treat their physical ills. To the first outpatient building constructed in 1889, had been added four wards with 28 beds for inpatients, one operating room and a dark room for ophthalmoscopic work. It was a small but brave assertion of Christian care and compassion in the heart of a hostile land, for killing an infidel as a way to attain Paradise was common practice among fanatical Muslims in those early days.
The Frontier it served was a bleak and isolated land of rugged mountains and great stretches of arid, rocky plains. Apart from the railway to Quetta, there were few roads and only rough trails across the wastelands and through the passes. Excepting the British garrison and government officers at Quetta and the few other stations, the inhabitants were mostly scattered tribespeople who changed their dwellings with the season. Separated by deserts and mountain ranges, the various tribes seldom mixed together. Education in a formal sense was unknown, and there was little desire for schooling among those living in or near the Frontier stations to whom it was available.
Dr. HOLLAND found the hospital in full swing; spring and autumn were the busiest, when caravans could move without hindrance of snow and freezing temperatures or the intolerable summer heat. Among the patients were small-statured Brahui, of supposed Dravidian stock, who came in droves after their winter sojourn to the plains south of Sibi on their way back to the uplands. Tall, hardy Pathans, the Afghan tribes living on the then British side of the border, came down from the mountains to the north. A Pushtu-speaking Semitic people, they claimed descent from the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Baluchi arrived as the weather warmed, from the southern foothills and plains running east from Sibi to the Punjabi frontier. Also a Semitic people and often of fine physique, their language was a form of Persian. Journeying up from the plains were Sindhis and Punjabis.
The doctor was not put off by the Muslim fanaticism, blood feuding and raiding that characterized a part of the tribesmen's way of life. Seeing their strength in adversity and the obvious need for medical attention, he quickly took up the challenge of adjusting to life in entirely strange surroundings.
Work for the young medical graduate began at once. Dysentery and malaria were common ills. Surgical needs were great though limited facilities permitted treatment mostly of hemorrhoids, tubercular glands and cataracts. As he had not had hospital experience, he spent several hours each day working with the doctor he was soon to replace, learning surgical technique. Otherwise learning by doing, he was soon administering treatment for all manner of ailments. Later, he was able to widen his knowledge through visits to hospitals in Kashmir, the Punjab and Sind.
By adhering to a rigorous daily regimen of work and study, he passed examinations in Urdu, Persian and Pushtu and mastered the rudiments of Brahui, Baluchi, Punjabi and Sindhi. Whenever the hospital work slackened, the adventurous doctor made treks into the outlying countryside, sometimes hunting and always learning more about the lives of the tribespeople and their medical needs. Cataracts and eye infections were endemic to the area, induced by glaring heat, searing winds, dust, flies, vitamin deficiency in the diet and calcium-laden water. Perhaps because the plight of the blind touched him most, he developed a special talent for eye surgery. On his return to Quetta in 1907, after a serious illness had necessitated an extended leave, he was given charge of the medical mission.
In the autumn of 1909, a wealthy Hindu merchant and philanthropist invited Dr. HOLLAND to spend the winter weeks treating patients at Shikarpur, in North Sind, offering to cover all expenses. The doctor and his two colleagues refused payment for their services, but agreed to return if the merchant would provide a building for their operative work. The small hospital that was ready the following year has now grown into one of the largest eye clinics in the world, able to care for 600 patients at a time. Though some other surgical cases are treated, the main work is ophthalmic.
Since 1920, some 150 eye specialists have come from India, Pakistan, the Continent, the United Kingdom and the United States to observe and work at Shikarpur. They pay their own traveling expenses and board and room for the privilege of working there. In a mutually beneficial exchange, the visiting doctors have brought the latest developments in surgical technique and themselves had valuable operative experience, performing up to 200 cataract operations in a month's stay, whereas two or three a week would be the average in most clinics elsewhere. Other medical missionaries also have come each year to join in the work. This outside help has meant that four doctors could each operate six hours a day. With such teamwork, as many as 3,000 operations have been performed during one two-month season at Shikarpur, of which 1,400 were for cataracts.
A second clinic was later established at Khairpur, also in North Sind, and for a time a clinic was operated for a few weeks each year in Karachi under the auspices of the Poor Patients' Relief Society. As other doctors joined the mission, stations were set up in the surrounding countryside to which medical and nursing staff were regularly assigned.
The main base was still Quetta, and the hospital there grew steadily, chiefly due to the increase of eye work. Facilities were better adapted to local custom with the addition of wards where patients could be accompanied by relatives with cooking pots. Between 1904 and 1930, 14 such wards were built for patients who would rather pay a rupee a day than go into a public ward; all were the gifts of grateful patients. Similar accommodations for very poor families were provided free. Patients often came from long distances, and to have their relatives with them during convalescence with a family camel, donkey or goat in the courtyard was a natural arrangement they appreciated.
The tradition of service was strengthened at Quetta by the building of a Christian nursing profession and the institution, in 1926, of a full-fledged training program for male nurses. From 1931, the mission hospital also trained a succession of dispensers. An X-ray unit had been purchased, in 1925, with donations from local sirdars and chieftains. By 1934, the number of beds had been increased to 124 and that year inpatients numbered 3,447 and major operations totalled 3,760. With the exercise of much faith and patience in a Muslim environment, old suspicion and distrust had given way to confidence, notably regarding surgery.
All of this painstakingly built physical plant was destroyed, in May 1935, when a disastrous earthquake laid Quetta in ruins, killing some 25,000 people in the city and environs. After five days in a hospital recuperating from a back injury sustained when he was pinned under falling beams, Dr. HOLLAND was appointed Chief Medical Officer of Baluchistan, in charge of rescue work, making provision for casualties and prevention of epidemics. This task completed, the intrepid doctor then faced the problem of reconstruction. "Striking while the iron was hot," he made a trip to England to raise funds. Other support for the Rebuilding Fund came from not then partitioned India. Temporary structures were in operation in 1936 and two years later the first permanent buildings went up. The new hospital was completed on the same site on May 6, 1940, 40 years from the day of his first arrival at Quetta.
In 1936, the doctor had been made a Knight-Bachelor in recognition of the work of the mission hospital and his contribution to ophthalmology. He had previously received the decoration of the Kaiser-i-Hind gold medal and bar and, in 1929, the Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.) in tribute of his service to the tribespeople of Baluchistan.
His medical work on the Frontier meanwhile was becoming a family affair. Effie Tunbridge, the second nursing sister to join the Quetta mission became Dr. HOLLAND's wife four years later in 1910. Their elder son, Harry, joined his father in 1935. The second son, RONALD, born in Quetta in 1914, followed suit in 1940, after completing his medical training at Edinburgh. Marriage interrupted the plans of their daughter, Esme, also to serve on the Frontier. RONALD's wife, Joan, has carried on as a nurse, keeping hospital accounts and becoming an expert anesthetist though, stricken with paralytic polio a year after their marriage in 1940, she has the full use of only one arm and is unable to walk. When malaria, contracted marching through the Burma jungle in wartime, continued to undermine his health, Harry returned to England and, in 1953, started the Oversea Service, a pioneer venture under the auspices of the British Council of Churches and the Conference of British Missionary Societies to spread a sense of Christian responsibility among laymen going to assignments abroad. RONALD has taken his father's place in charge of the medical mission work in Pakistan. Excelling also in general surgery, he is recognized as the most skillful ophthalmic surgeon of the family. He has learned the many languages of Baluchistan and otherwise has carried on unbroken his father's legacy of compassionate service. Though even more patients than in his father's time are treated during the crowded winter months at Shikarpur and Khairpur and during the spring and autumn at Quetta, Dr. RONALD HOLLAND continues to visit the outlying areas. Setting up mobile clinics along the way he, too, performs delicate eye operations and treats assorted other ailments for poor tribespeople to whom no other help is available.
In treating the thousands who come each year to their hospitals and clinics the HOLLANDS developed mass operative techniques that have relevance for surgeons elsewhere who may be called upon to meet large-scale disasters. Where it was no uncommon experience to see 200 to 300 outpatients a day, the choice was made to forego elaborate treatment for a few and take care of as many as possible. Both father and son have done up to 70 cataract operations a day. Records were not as detailed as they would like, but each patient was recorded as to diagnosis, treatment, operation, operator, complications and result. Methods were simplified to the extreme, but the essential preoperative technique has been maintained and postoperative care adapted to the resources available and the mores of the people, proving, for example, that a cataract case can move about within hours after surgery without harmful effect. Despite severe handicaps, these careful adjustments to field conditions have produced excellent results. Though the Shikarpur clinic operates only two months each year, it can record more than 150,000 eye operations, including 80,000 cataract extractions of which 97 per cent have proved successful.
Feeling that the scientific part of their work should be brought before the profession, both Sir HENRY and Dr. RONALD HOLLAND have contributed articles to leading medical journals in India, Britain and the United States and read papers at the Oxford Ophthalmic Congress.
Following partition in 1947, Quetta and Shikarpur fell within the borders of West Pakistan. The hospitals helped through the difficult period of adjustment and now are continuing their good work. Beside the goodwill among the people and the tribal chieftains, based on trust, has been a growing appreciation of the Christian qualities of concern and integrity for which the hospitals have stood through the years.
Sir HENRY's retirement, due according to the rules of his mission society in 1940, was postponed for the duration of World War II and again delayed until conditions were settled enough for him to hand over to his sons and his Pakistani Christian assistant. In those postwar years, he served on Government Commissions, on Church and Mission councils and committees, sharing in the planning of medical policy both for the Church and the Government of India.
Finally leaving active service in March 1948, he was promptly called back again to treat the King of Afghanistan. Two years later and until his own eyesight began to fail in 1956, grateful tribesmen, led by a Baluch chief, made up a purse to pay his traveling expenses for an annual visit to his hospitals. During the remainder of those years, he traversed England raising funds, recruiting missionaries and encouraging young people to think less of themselves and more of service to others. Now 85, he came to Pakistan again this year to celebrate his golden jubilee among his beloved tribespeople.
Simple and unassuming in manner, this father and son bely their splendid record as two of the world's foremost eye surgeons. Both have been offered professional opportunities with high standing and handsome stipends but have chosen to devote their skills as medical missionaries among an isolated people. Of those who come to work or be treated at their hospitals, no question is asked as to their faith, but the doctors' own lives are a continual Christian challenge to all who know them.
Each day's work is preceded by prayer. In operating for hours on end visitors, too, have sensed the therapeutic value of the spiritual atmosphere thus created. To the HOLLANDS, prayer and healing go together, for healing to them "speaks" the same message as Christ's teaching—the love of God in whose sight every individual is important.