"SCIENTIFIC ERROR"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 October 1931, Page 3

"SCIENTIFIC ERROR"

(Press Assn.-

LUBECK SENSATION TRAGIC MISTAKE WHICH COST SEVENTY-FIYE INFANT LIVES PROFESSOR'S ADMISSION

-By Telegraph — Copyri&ht.)

"BERLIN, Monday. At Lubeek Professor Deyck created a sensation by stating that when he first introduced the Calmette treatment he was convinced it was not only harmless but beneficial. Now he fran'kly admits that as the result of 18 months' experiments on infants that he made a scientific error, for which he assumed full responsibility. He added : "If the Court deelares that that error is punishable I beg it to find me, and not the others guilty." Medical men crowded the Court at Lubeck early this month, to hear the sequel to the deaths of many infants after treatment with the Calmette antitubercular process last year. Professor Deyck, head of the Lubeck general hospital, Dr. Klotz, head of the children's hospital, Dr. Altsaedt, head of the Health Department, and Nursing Sister Anna Sehultze were charged with negligence causing manslaughter or bodily injury to 253 infants, of whom 75 died, more than 100 became seriously ill and many are yet in danger. The prosecution alleges that insufficient care was taken in the preparation of the vaccine used, the Calmette cultures being kept in the same incubator with virulent human tubercular cultures. Also it is alleged that defendants failed to discover by experiments on animals whether the cultures were innocuous before they administered them to the children.