A DREAD DISEASE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 179, 27 January 1912, Page 10

A DREAD DISEASE

A REMARKABLE AFFAIR. A remarkable example of the dire effects of sleeping sickness was afforded by the experience of the crew of a French sailing vessel, the Antoinette, which completed a voyage from Java to a French port a few weeks ago. The arrival of the vessel at her home port occasioned great excitement, since her crew of fifteen all belonged to the port and she had been absent for more than a year. Wives and children and friends turned out to welcome the voyagers, but it was a sad home-coming. Only two members of the crew, a French lad of fifteen and a negro a year older, were to be seen on deck when the Antoinette anchored at the quarantine station. Of the remainthirteen three were dead and ten were lying helpless. The story of the two boys was a pitiable one. The vessel left Samarang on August 1, and some weeks later the mate complained of sickness. He felt pains in his legs, which weer swollen badly, and he told his companions that he. was "dying for a little sleep." He went to bed ,a victim of sleeping sickness, and his death occurred on October 26. Meanwhile other members of the crew had been attacked, and the quartermaster died three weeks after the mate. By that time all the members of the crew except the two boys had fallen under the spell of thed read disease j and were lyings in their bunks helpless and almost unconscious. The captain fought off the attack longer than any of the men did, his concern for the safety of his ship giving him strength, and fol some time after he lost the use of his limbs he forced his mind ti retain a little of its power. Before he lapsed into unconsciousness he succeeded in telling the boys had to navigate the ship into port, and they carried out his instructions in heroic fashion. The reason why thej should have escaped the ravages of the epidemic is one of the mytseries that the investigators of the terrible disease hav* still to solve.