Stillman Food Unsavory

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The report in the University's Financial Statement of the surplus of the Hygiene Department quite startled me and other recent alumni of Stillman Infirmary. In general the treatment and care we received in our Mt. Auburn St. exile was very good-the nurses were plentiful and usually friendly and helpful. The ward was clean and the medical attention apparently competent. And so we naturally attributed the condition of the food, so out of step with the rest of the infirmary, to a lack of funds. But now that a surplus of $30,000 has been revealed, it is time that the food situation at Stillman be made public.

The menus in a one week stay included three meals with macaroni as a main attraction, a meal made up of potato chips and an inedible salad, and meat loaf which tasted as if someone had misread the recipes on the back of a Corn Flakes box. Orange juice was always canned, and stewed fruits, and canned spice foods, not what one gives to a convalescing patient, made up the diet. Meat, with the exception of Sunday dinner, was poor and rarely present, while the fish on Friday had, better not be described in print.

That the quality of the food was really inferior both as regards choice of foods and as regards preparation, and that this is not merely the protest of one spoiled or squeamish patient is best attested by the constant lines to the lavatory. And certainly the standard of the Houses at Harvard is not too high to be met by a hospital.

With a surplus of $30,000, it would seem that Harvard's private socialized medicine system, theoretically run for the health of the students, could see to it that the food of Stillman Infirmary is up to a standard at least equal to that of the rest of the University. Only then should questions such as fees for off-hour visits, be considered. Andreas F. Lowenfeld '51