STARVATION IN VIENNA

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 20, 19 October 1920, Page 7

STARVATION IN VIENNA

SUFFERING CHILDREN, Among recent arrivals in Melbourne was Dr. Elsio Dalyell, who lias been ' spending five weeks at her Sydney home before returning to Europe,' where she j has been engaged in research work for ' some years. Dr. Dalyell, after gaining a research fellowship in Sydney in 1013, went to London for bacteriological iv- i search. At the end of 1911 she went to : Serbia, and later to France, being at- - (ached to the (itli French Army in 1916. i The noiid for medical women, pnrticu- i larly bacteriologists, was so great, however, in the R.A.M.C, .tlnat D*\ Dalyell tiansferred .to the British Army, and . from France she went to Malta and . Salonika, being placed in of a laboratory in the field. Her other experiences included attachment as pathologists to the 82nd British General Hospital at Constantinople, wh,ere she was awarded the 0.8. E. for distinguished services. Having returned to the Lister Institute ■ of Preventive Medicine, London (controlled by Colonel 0 J. Martin, for many years of the Melbourne! University), Dr. Dalyell learnt that plans had been mude for an inquiry into famine conditions in , Vienna, particularly in relation to diseases caused among children. With JDc. ( ■ Hnrriette Chick- (assistant- to Colonel Martin), she went to Vienna in Scptcm- ( tier, 1919, and became attached to the , British Food Mission in that city. For . t\en months investigations were made. Dr. Dalyell is now returning to Vienna to ■ continue the same work. . ' "The conditions in Vienna," she said . to a Press representative, "are deplor- ' able. We found the people suffering ter- '. riblv from starvation and cold, and the chief sufferers are the children, 80 per ' cent, of whom show 6ome degree of phy- , steal deformity. The supply of fresh . milk is only 5 per cent, of the qunn- , tity available before the war; butter and other dairy produce do not exist in the city. The people are rationed for bread, meat, and sugar. Most of them cannot possibly pay for the meat ration, ! and tho sugar is not really available. ■ Each person is entitled to obtain 2Jlb. of bread—dark brown, sodden, and unpalatable loaves—a week, and the price for it . is equivalent to an English £1 at piv- . war rates." : Dr. Dalyell went on to explain that one of the greatest problems was the ' kck of employment, owing' to the absence of raw material, sue?] as leather, metals, | and wool. Before the war Vienna was the ; wealthy centre of an empire of 51,000,000 people, but now it held 2,000,000 of the 0,000,000 people in tho republic' the other ! provinces having separated. was ■ practically nothing for most of these J!,000,000 hungry .people to do, and. no other place to which they could go. For- -j eign missions wero rendering a lot of help, but it was a.most dishyssing and difficult problem. It was pitiable to see ■ so many highly skilled tradsmen—por- ' celain workers, leather workers, metal j workers, tailors, and others—on the verge ' of starvatio.il". In Vienna the Americans through tho Austrian authorities, were ' providing one meal a day for 100,000 chiL dren. The British Mission' also was pre visi'oning th,j city. Thtere was great need, 1 however, for more food, especially fats, and for clothing and boots. The famine conditions had caused an appalling amount of "deficiency" disease m children.