The World Loses Two Friends

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 69, 13 August 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

The World Loses Two Friends

Two splendid men have passed from our midst within the last few months, says an English paper, one of them full of years and honour*, the' other young and unknown. The older man was Sir George Turner, a famous doctor, who\ died at seveniy-nino. He it was who scourged the plague of rinderpest from South Africa, and then, when our troops in the Boer War were dying liko stricken sheep from typhoid, had practically to force his cervices upon the British Government. His attention was afterwards drawn to the dreadful lot of the lepers, and to'this terrible disease he gave the rest of his days, himself falling a victim to leprosy.

The other man whom we mov.rn was a leper, too, only twenty-one, Archie Thomas, the wireless operatoi at Penikeso Island, Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts. Peril ko-e Island, formerly the private property of a rich American citizen, was given to Louis Agassiz, the great naturalist, for the study of marine life, but with the death of Agassiz it became an asylum for lepers. There they have lived for many years, isolated from' the rvst of huiijanity. Archie Thomas, when he became stricken, joined the sad colony. Though doomed to certain death, he was not downcast. He set himself to keep the colony in touch with the outer world, and maintained a regular wireless service. Now he is dead, and Penikese Island is .again the abode of silence and sadness.