COPY
Tainan.
19/10/29
My dear Mumford,
Dr. Landsborough and I have been requested by Council to write you respecting your proposal for early return to work out here, and the doctor has asked me to indite the epistle.
What we all feel is this – that, needed as you are out here, it would be false economy and very questionable wisdom to come out again after until you are not only physically fit for immediate work, but sufficiently recuperated to stand the strain throughout your next term of service.
You had an extremely difficult time throughout your first term both with repeated severe illnesses and with nervous strain of the work, the one interacting on the other till it was only a marvel that you were sufficiently well to take the journey home when you did.
All this has necessarily bought your resistance down to a very low ebb, and though you may be fit to carry on further study at home it would seem to us to be far too early to risk coming out again until this resistance is more fully restored.
Though things at Shokwa seem to be happily working now and we trust, and expect, that the troubles there are things of the past – yet there are always worries connected with the work as you well know, and if one is not physically fit one’s tackling of these gives no satisfaction either to one’s self or to the people here. Beyond this there is need for physical fitness for the ordinary routine Hospital work with it’s oft-times trying patients, trying weather, and the thousand and one trying things on wings and in the atmospherics.
You are needed out here, but you are needed as a physically fit man.
In the meantime Dr. Landsborough appears extremely well and full of pep – in other words the work can go on for the present, and the urgency will come when Dr. L and I have our furloughs. When you have to carry on (so far as we can see at present) alone on the field, there will necessarily be heavy strain devolving on you. May we urge you not to jeopardise your chance of being able to meet it by too early return to work.
Your colleagues regard you are deserving of a long rest and time of convalescence, and venture to express the opinion that anything else than this would lay you open to a very grave risk of further breakdown.

複本
臺南
1929年10月19日
親愛的文輔道
　蘭大衛醫生與我已請理事會寫信給你，通知你他們尊重你提早回工作崗位的選擇，醫生也請我撰寫該信件。
　我們的看法是：雖然這裡需要你，但是若你在身體尚未完全健全前，能夠挺得住下一個工作任期的壓力，恐得不償失，且長期下來會是更大的損失。
　你在第一工作期已經很辛苦，不僅時常生病，且工作壓力龐大，兩者交互作用下，你最終還能平安返回英國，簡直是奇蹟。
　這些壓力也導致你抵抗力變得薄弱，即便足以你在家裡讀書，但仍不足以讓你再次前來這裡，必須等到你抵抗力全部復原為止。
　雖然彰化目前很順利，許多問題也似乎都解決了，但仍然有許多工作相關的憂患。你也知道，若身體狀況不佳，僅讓自己與他人感到失望。除此之外，不論是處理煩人的病人、忍受惡劣的氣候與處理一千零一個變化無窮的事情，一般醫院例行差事也是需要靠體力。
　我們這裡確實需要你，但是我們需要你身體健壯才行。
　同時，蘭大衛醫生狀況看起來很好，精神飽足，也就是他目前工作還承受的了，爾後必定遇到我與蘭大衛返鄉休假事宜。屆時，你就必須一個人承受所有工作量，感受到龐大壓力，我們建議你不要這麼急著提早回來工作，而危及自己身體健康。
　你的同事皆認為你應該長期休養身體，並表示若你未能好好休息身體，恐只會造成你身體崩潰。