[postmarked 9 oct 1920]

Dear Mother:

My interview with Dr. Baldwin was not particularly satisfactory. Briefly, I asked her whether she uses a disinfectant on the cotton first. She said she did, but it is beyond me how she does, or rather, when she puts it there. She ways that she makes up bottles of 25% solution of argyrol in the infirmary, because that is what she uses for other purposes there. Then, when she gives me the treatment, (immediately before putting the argyrol into the catheter) she dilutes the 25% to 10%). The letter which I brought from home told her to boil the catheter every time). She said that even when everything is sterile and disinfected, there is no guarantee that an infection cannot get into the bladder, because there is no way of proving whether so-called sterile things really are sterile, and that if I were to get another infection into my bladder which is already infected, she would not consider it her fault or the fault of the one giving the treatment. She says she has seen that happen in hospitals even when every precaution has been taken, and probably Dr. Z. has seen it, too. She said it had never happened to anyone that she has treated as yet though. She said that that is a risk which the person receiving this sort of treatment risks. R. S. V. P. about all this. I have felt as good for the last four days as I did when I left home.