DOCTORS STARVING

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2391, 22 February 1915, Page 7

DOCTORS STARVING

' SHOCKING- CONDITIONS IN i ' : BELGIUM. Professor Jacobs, of Brussels, in an address before, the . Edinburgh. Obstetrical' Society a few weeks ago, gave a thrilling and appalling account of the" state of Belgium, and more particularly of the 1 sufferings of tha.medical profession there. . Ho pointed out that the Belgian medical men are sharing to the full'in' the general, distress. A strong sense of duty is alone keeping many of them ill districts which nave been.: absolutely devastated by the Germans, and before : these 'men there stand many months during which they Imow they will have to suffer, whilst giving all their services to their country. Professor Jacobs mentioned numerous instances of suffering which he personally knew about. Many, doctors, for example; had to work as navvies in order to gain a few coppers for a livelihood. Others had to sell such few and meagre belongings as were left to them. Many he knew who had not even-seen bread for a fortnight, and who had to sleep on a little straw on the baro ground: Several of his own colleagues were so reduced that their very clothes and hoots were falling to pieces. One professor of Louvain University had with his wife subsisted for three days on wayside herbs. Another he found looking for his wife and family, whom he had not seen or heard of for six, daye. One Belgian professor was ehot ; after having had his ears cut off and.his eyes put out, and the German soldiers then carried his head round the town on the end of a, lance; Professor Jacobs then related a few instances of German "kultun" One example may be stated, ilhree weeks before the war broke out he operated on a lady neaf Namur.. In tlio beginning of August she was convalescent. A'day or two after the outbreak of hostilities she was, before, the eves of her husband, violated by seven German - soldiers, as a result of which she died two days later. '