EPIDEMIC COMMISSION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 137, 5 March 1919, Page 4

EPIDEMIC COMMISSION

AUCKLAND- SITTINGS CONCLUDED,

Bt Telegraph—Press Association.

Auckland, March 4. The Epidemic Commission concluded its Auckland sittings to-day. Dr Milsom was recalled lektive to the meet'in? of doctors convened by the Auckland Division of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association in the early days of the outbreak. He explained that the meeting was unanimous m the opinion that the disease was introduced by the Niagara, everyone present votins except Eγ. Russell, the Port Health Officer, who passed the boat. Witness, in answer to Ihe chairman, expressed the opinion that at present there were about a. hundred medical men in Auckland. There were about a dozen present. Ho considered this a very good attendance, considering- that the profession wa? so busy at the time with the epidemic, and that the. meeting was hurriedly called by telephone. Dr. Milsorn reiterated that the evidence he had siv*n on the subject of the'•Niagara wns the unanimous opinion of the meeting, n«d added tnat he was at the hospital on the evening of the day the Niagara arrived, and Dr. Hall, house surgeon at the hospital, said to him: "Wo have some patient* here from ilie Niapirn, and they are d'esporalely bad. I should like you, to see them." He went to the ward and saw that tliß patients wwe in a-dreadful way. He had never seen anvthing bk« them ■before. They were all cyanosetl, and were clearly cases of no ordinary kind. The patients were evidently .sufferm? from capillary bronchitis. Mid were almost drowning in their owii secretions. He had never seen such a type betore. although two days previously he had hart a case in which a- woman was suffering from somewhat similar symptoms, but without the dreadful toxemia evident in the. Niagara cases.. An effort was made to secure ihe attendance of Dr. Hall for evidence., but as he wns unable to leave his diuies the commission closed its sittings.. . The members of tha commission leave to-ni?ht for Wellington, where they expect'to sit on Monday.