ANOTHER WITTENBERG

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2848, 12 August 1916, Page 7

ANOTHER WITTENBERG

TITIIUB PATIENTS DESERTED AT STENDAL.

The experiences of Dr. Bibadeau-Du-nias, a French physician, in two German prison camps are recorded in the "British Jtedical Journal," ill Si'i article that (says "The Times") rccalis . the scandalous conduct of the German authorities during the typhus epidemic at.'Wittenberg. After a period of detention at •Utengrabow, Dr. Piljadeau-Dumas was 'sent with other doctors, French and .Russian, on February 8, 1915, to, Steudal. There the prisoners' were persecuted in nil 60rts ot ways. The .state of things was so bad that the higher authorities deem to liavo become alarmed, and an order was issued enjoining prudence on thoso in charge of camps, as ''too severe .treatment indicted on the prisoners was likely to tarnish the good name of Germans among neutrals." In consequence, some of the officers strove to undo the evil effects of the previous reign of terror. Typhus broke out, and the Germans' fled, leaving the French and Russian doctors with tho sick within a barbed-wire enclosure, whero the conditions were most iinlavourabie. Several of the medical men fell victims to the criminal want of forethought of those in charge of the camp. Tlie Government was moved to take action only, when the disease began to spread among us own people. Tnen isolation huts were built, disiufectors and baths set up, and by way of throwing dust in the lyes of the public, antityphoid inoculations were carried out on a large scale. } At btemlal the staple ration whs what was called potato soup, a filthy decoction- with herring ,heads floating in it, and smelling of rotten fish, which tho very dogs howled at. Miserable as the l'ood. was, tho prisoners fought for it. .Parcels sent from homo were opened 1 and the contents stolen. Punishments in the form of blows, kicks, and short commons were showered on the "prisoners; the doctors were placed under arrest without any reason assigned; some were confined to their rooms for months. The lazaretto was barely furnished; the beds were mere frames covered with mattresses of wood shavings and a coverlet. The medicines consisted of aspirin and quinine (ablets, tincture of iodine, castor oil, and patossiuin chlorate. There 'were only a few instruments—,t worn-out tongue depressor, two crooked stylets, and a jugged bistoury. The German doctors were, as a rule, rough, sometimes brutal, in their manners; they physicked the patients at haphazard; some were grossly ignorant. Wounds were stitched up with a mattress needle and unasepticised thread; the surgeons did not wash their hands.

Dr. Uibadeau-Dumas complains Noitterly of the utter neglect with which the sick prisoners were treated. Inspections were . a farce'. Once they saw a general, to whom they were allowed to speak, but after listening to the recital at tlieir woes, he said that tliht kind of thing <li<l not concern him, and walked away. At Altengrabow. in reply to sipme complaint, another general merely called them "sajres socnons." These ate the only occasions on which tlie.v had any, relations with the higher German authorities. The neutral inspectors they never'saw.'- One day file French prisonfrs refused the soup, which was unusually bad. They were 'niade to stand motionless in two rows for a couple of hours; they were then placed in a, barbed wire enclosure with somo 60 prisoners from Wittenberg suspected of typhus. Of many of the worst things Dr. says that he cannot bring himself to write.