Washington D.C.
Jan 6, 1925.

Dear Ina,

Your letter gave me a thrill, for the double envelope looked as though it might have been an announcement or invitation to a wedding. It was quite a relief to see handwriting inside, though you made me wish that I had been there during the holidays.

The scientific meetings have closed and most of the men have gone, but there are a few visitors even yet. Mr. Bishopp will probably be here for several days yet. I brought so much skin from the patients in Florida that it has given me a real job here. We estimated the time it would require to complete the work and with night work as I have had during the past six weeks, I’ll be here until March 1st. I doubted if they would allow me to stay here that long but Mr. Bishopp has agreed to it. This will put me in Dallas about the time Dr. and Mrs. Roark come down and no doubt some of the Dallas folks will go to Uvalde with them. I am in hopes that I can go pretty soon after arriving at Dallas for I want to see you.

January 6, 1925

We will not get a special appropriation for the Florida work next year as our Chief would not accept it until he was sure that the project belonged to this Bureau. The fact is that it does not belong to us but the Director of Research for the whole Department agreed that I could continue even though it does not belong to us, but we cannot get an appropriation specially for it. This means that I’ll have to work single-handed again. Though I am in hopes that I can get Dr. White to come down during the clinic.

I wouldn’t take anything for the experience with Dr. White. It is better than a special course in a University on the same thing. He is an MD and PhD but goes to a University for special work quite often, yet. He is about 55 years old. I couldn’t possibly have a better man to work with on this problem.

The parasite causing the creeping eruption is about 1/50 of an inch long and 1/1200 of an inch wide, and there is only one to a lesion. This may give you an idea of what the problem is. The color is the same as human tissue. It has to be stained and then studied microscopically under oil immersion magnification. No wonder Dr. K.S. hadn’t been able to locate it during 14 years of practice. I really believed that I had the thing isolated last summer when I wrote you about it, but the people here didn’t think I could be right. This time we have it in sections in human skin so there is no question about it. If you can find time I’d be mighty glad to hear from you.

Always
Walter.