Painful Death of an Austrian Physician

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 76, 17 December 1889, Page 3

Painful Death of an Austrian Physician

A most distressing case h'as'( writes the Vienna correspondent of the Daily UTews'caused^a wing of the General Hospital to be closed for a time, and the nurses to be 1 kept out of contact with any one not r belonging- to the hospital. In the month" of August a man was , brought to the hospital suffering from the terrible disease called glanders, which he had taken from a horse .similarly afflicted. He soon died, and a military surgeon, Dr Howalskf; who has' spent many years examining bacillss of all kinds, undertook to' subject 7 the dead body ,to< a close examination, This was' in itself a most dangerous piece iof work. By the aid of the microscope, he soon succeeded in.- finding the bacillus, whom, he reared; to watch the<manner of its growth and its vitality. ' An ambitious' young physician,' Dr Honfi mann, expressed -his ' doubts as to whether the ba'cillus reared artificially had still in if'tlie power of infection. Dr Rowalski gave .one of his families, and Dr Hoffmann soon saw that the poison still had t the most deadly power.' ' All the animals he injected with it ' died rof the horrible malady. At the beginning of October Dr H'pffm'ann caught cold, and felt acute'pains' in his side. The pain increased,' and Dr Hoffmann tried to cure it by injecting morphia. He did this wi'h the -syringe which he had used for injecting' the glanders poison into the animals: Although it had Deen 'disinfected in , glowing heat, some .particles of the poison 'must have'still b'een in it, for Dr Hoffmann grew^worse ev.ery day, f and his friends took him ,to the hospital. His colleagues .were horrified when they saw him, the whole body being covered by terrible ulcers, which', when they were examined, proved to be filled with the glanders poison. v ' The case touches the whole medical profession to the heart ; 200 doctors^.are busying themselves witn it and all the , great professors visit the, patient several times a day. Untile the 22nd Dr Hoffmann was in great pain, but he then happily lost all consciousness.^ Hejknew perfectly well what wasfthje matter with him, and gave a cobl'aceoiintof what he had done, and* Whafc-'ttie consequences were likely 'tow be. Latter in the night Dr. Hoffmann' *died without regaining consciousness.-rLondon Correspondent Ohristchurch