UNKNOWN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 327, 1 March 1910, Page 5

UNKNOWN

STORIES 01-' HEROES. The heroic story of the death of Dr. John Herbert Wells (says the Daily Mail) wlio recently suceumbrd to glanders after eighteen months of suffering, adds another name to the evergrowing list of men who have fac <1 the martyrdom in the cause of scientific knowledge, for the welfare of their fellow men.

Early scientists, like Galileo, Miller'd persecution for their enlightenment, and various >cekcrs after the scevt of the transnu;ia:iou of metals or of ■perpetual motion are said to hav« blown I'emsolve* to pieces in their search for scientific truth. But with, the vast strides w" ieh science, and in particular medical science—has made m more recent years, the roll of martyrs in the cause of knowledge has rapidly Increased. Nowaday*, every research student in a hospital earr-'S his life in his hands, and h.-re and there science is claiming her sacrifice. Less than three months ago the death was recorded in Paris of Ijr. Jacques Aiiloin:- Rc!.niier, son of a lending membei ol the Academy of Mediiii.e, who contracted blood priso-i----ing while conducting a post mortem examination in the Necker Hospital. Oil his deatii bed he lifted his friends int. to grieve, "for."' h- said. "I die like a soldwr uii till- battlefield; when ;vo i take up the mi'd'-al career yon araware ot the da Hirers, and must '„•* ready ever to law them." Siiih ''.re. the sentiments which animate mn-t «f the men who devote their lives to-day to the cause of science, which is the cause of mankind.

Eighteen months ago a patient :n quarantine at Singapore died, and a post mortem examination became necessary to determine the cause of death. Two doctors—Dr. Raikes and Dr Wr.iy —both Government medical officeis, and therefore bound by duty as well as by the call of medical science—discharged the perilous task Both men contracted plague. Both men died. Death on the battlefield might seem more merciful. The death of Dr. Allan Macfadyen, the bacteriologist, in London two years ago, was due to a combination of two diseases which lie contracted in the course of his search for a preventive of disease. Dr. Macfadyen 'was connect?! ■with the Lister Institute, and was conducting a series or experiments with the bacteria of typhoid and Malta fever, with the view of discovering a; vaccine to prevent these diseases. By an accident, it is believed, he contracted both, and his name was added io the roll of martyrs of the laboratory.

Within a few months of Dr. Ma?fadyen's death occurred the death of Mr. W. H. Brown, one of the leading members of the medical profession in "Heeds, and a specialist* in the treatment of cancer, while operating, he contracted blood poisoning, and this, it was deliev d, led to the cancer which caused his death. A fortnight afterwards, Dr. Seneca Powell, one of the best known professors of medicine in the United States, and

a teacher in the Xew York Postgraduate School of Medicine, became a victim to his daring investigations into years' illness. Believing that pure alcohol could be used as an antidote for carbolic poisoning, Dr. Powell made repeated experiments on himself to test m's theory for the benefit if the world. His heroic experiments were said to have undermined his 'constitution, and died a martyr to science.

Professor Curie, who, with his wif?, won a place in the history of science as flic discoverer if radium, was perhaps saveu from a martyr's lingering death by the street accident in Pars which cut rsbto ys(,iria dtirr-ok hisrld v which cut short his life. His journey to London, with the first tube of radium ever exhibited, resulted in a wound in the chest which took montus to heal, for the radium emanation •passed through his waistcoat and underclothes and burned his chest to the •bone. His experiments with radium scourged hjs hands and arms, which, were practically paralysed to the elbows and rendered unpresentable to the eyes of strangers.

In America the early history of the Rontogcn rays was marked by the "death of two men. One was Clarence Dully, chief assistant" to Mr Kdison, and the other was Dr. Louis Wcigel, of New York.

For seven years Mr. Dally was a martyr to dermatitis, caused by the 'Xposurn of his hands and arms ia the rays. A cancerous growth developed on his left arm, the lower part cf which had to be amputated. His hair died oil'. Foiu lingers of his right hand had to be taken oil', and finally his right arm followed. But it was of no avail, and in September, 1!)(M, his life paid the penalty of his devetion to science.

The sufferings of Dr. Hall Edwarls, of Binniiiffham. who has had both hands destroyed by the Ronlogen rays; of Mr. Cox, who In February of this year underwent a second operation in consequence of his ,-arly experiments, and «'f othe r X-ray experimenters, have l)C''.i described in the Express during the p:i->t three or foil'- vcars. Dr Cecil EysltK, of the Middlesex 110-;>'..»l Fin •■en light department, is one of i :* men who have been maimed for iiic ; - the pru'C of his work in Uie cause of science.

The name of I>. Maeatier I'inie. who made two expeditions along the course of the Nile for the study ol tro:>iul fever, is recorded as that of a victim of scientific research. Dr. Pirrie went to the far ends of the liar-el-Oha :el and to the borders of Aby--ina, penetrating sonic of the more deadly aiv:i«. He came home stricken with the disease which he was seeking to eradicate. AHliouc'n lie wrote a paper p ir the British Association, he was too ill to read it before that Assembly, and he died when he was only twenty-eight years old.

Dr. Dutton. of the Live.rp-d School of Tropical Medicine, was tventy-nine years old when he died of tick fever, contracted while trying to elucidite its effects on man.

Manv (lipases havi' stricken down men who fearlessly faced them. Two years a so, tluvinj; an outbreak of spotted fever in Koine, Dr. Zanvpagnain. while tendin<r some of the victim*, contracted the disease, and. with death stviiTinsr towards him, he sat down and wrote a treatise on the fever whi.'h before long proved fatal to him. At Turin*. Dr. Guiseppe Bosso exnenmented with tubercle bacilli, which he developed in flie university laboratory. He became infected with the very bacilli lie had grown, and ni* name alw is inscribed on the roll of martyrs to science, . .•' -. ••■