The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1934-01-05
.slAsas nurse Decorated FOR 3

vice TO Near Eastern


vetern war nurse and now director
of the health-education work OF the
American Near East Foundation In
Athens, has been awarded a gold
medal by the Greek Government, ac-
cording to advice just received at the
headquarters Of the Foundation
here. The award was made by the
Minister Of Health, DR.. d. H. Soti-
rades, in recognition of her clever
years of service for the Greek and
other Near Eastern people. Attend
ant at the presentation weret the
American Minister to Greece, Lin
coin McVeagh, and Laird w. Archer,
foreign director Of the Near East
Foundation, which is conducting
program of health, agriculture, child
and community welfare, recreation
and youth training in Greece, AL
bania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and
Palestine Miss Carr is former
resident of Georgia and sister OF
Mrs. George H. Harris of McRae.
Miss Carr's service for the Near
Eastern people began early in 1928,
when she joined the staff of the
Near East Relief and was stationed
on the island of Syria in the Aegean
Sea. She had charge of the hospital
in an orphanage which sheltered T.
600 children exiled from Anatolia
during the Christian deportations
following the termination Of the
Turco-Grecian war. AS Red Cross
nurse during the world war she was
one OF the first to go overseas when
General Pershing took charge Of the
! Expeditionary Forces in France.
She was stationed at verdun and
nursed wounded aviators. After the
war she was in Austria, Poland and
| Czecho- Slovakia, preceding Fer SER
vice with the relief organization at
syria.
Later she went to Corinth, where
1900 Greek and Armenian orphans
were housed in old army barracks.
Contracting influenza from the child
rem, Miss Carr as a result lost the
senses of taste and smell. While in
Corinth she wiped out malaria that
was devitalizing the town bv cover
ing a thousand wells, digging a
hundred miles of trenches and en-
listing the entire community in an
lanti-disease campaign. This work
caused the Turkish government to
request her to outline plan for rid
ding Angara of the facilitating NAL
ady, and she was afterward borrow
ed by the Turkish government to
help establish a model baby home
and clinic in Smyrna. An almost
Immediate improvement took place
in the 500 general infant mortality
of the city, caused largely by the
/ feeding of chestnuts, cucumhers and
sour bread to babies less than a
year old.
4 Released from Smyrna, Miss Carr
was sent to Mosul in Iraq. At that
time infant mortality was as high as
1872 per 1000. At Mosul and in the
surrounding rural districts Miss
Carr set up an itinerant medical
service for the Assyrians before re-
turning to Syria to start the first
training school for nurses in Greece,
(which later was taken over by the
government.
In 1880, when the Near East
Foundation was incorporated to sue
coed the Near East Relief, Miss Carr
was appointed director of the Health
program for Greece. SPECIAL en-
phasis was placed on tuberculosis
prevention as at that time Greece
had a death rate from this disease
twelve times that of the United
States. Since that time Miss Carr
has been making demonstrations in
practical and economical methods of
prevention as well as cure. 1t is for
this work in particular that she has
been decorated.
Miss Carr started her work in
Athens with clinic for women and
children at the edge of Restaurant
Refugee Camp, where some 10000
poverty-stricken Anatolian Greeks
and few Armenians lived in tents,
battered shacks and old barracks.
These homes we're excellent breeding
places for tuberculosis and other di-
seases caused by hardship and mall
nutrition. The open markets where
the people traded were unprotected
from contamination until through
Miss Carr's efforts regulations were
passed by the police which required
the covering Of food produce SO that
it was not at the mercy Of the ele-
ments and the flies. This brought