Fighting Four Pests.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 156, 4 July 1896, Page 3 (Supplement)

Fighting Four Pests.

Clara Babton Tells ov Heb Work in

Plague-smitten Armenian Cities.

Constantinople, April 25.—Miss Clara Barton has drawn up the following Bbatemenb regarding tbe progress of her relief work in Asia Minor :—

• It ehonld be onderstodd that one object of our expeditions in the field ab this time is the helping of the people to cultivate their land and get crops of some kind to growing thab they may subsist upon in the near future and through the coming winter, or their condition of hunger and threatened starvation will be as great as or greater than now. To this end our bwo expedition* have been for eeveral weeks purchaaing'in $ the cities the farming implements in . general use by the, people and carrying, i them to the villages and farm lands of the • country, where all implements have been either destroyed or taken. • •It is understood that the Government has expressed a desire to take parb in providing seed for planting. luiiiaii corn (or maize) ia one article distributor! for ' food by our people, and ito can be planted, if no other seed is provided. • 1 The two expeditions are en route for Harpoot by different ways, providing tho farmers as they' go. Money for this purpose is being freely senb from here. - 'The other object, and perhaps the one appealing more directly to the sympathies of the people, is the handling of tho medical relief of the two fover-i stricken cities of Zeifeoun and Marash, where eight) to tea thousand people art* suffering the agonies of four distinct, ■ epidemics raging among them at once—: typhoid and typhus fevers, dysentery' and small-pox. The fiisb three would naturally follow as the result of the conditions of great deplebion by starvation and hardships, and the putrid atmosphere of a neglected field of siege and battle, with festering wounds and long nnburied dead. The small-pox must have been brought from come infected district.

' For the treatment of these thousands there are no physicians left; if they escaped one fate they fell by another. A few holy missionary women and men, with names to henceforth form a parr of the history of this miserable field, and one worn doctor, dividing himself between three cifciea seven iciles aparb, like poor Cassabianca, stood ab their uoslis.

' In this state of things we took up the medical reliei of these 111-fated vMea. Physicians must be found who were willing to risk the double danger of contagious disease and a country by no means in a settled condi&ion.

* Through Mr George Post, of Beyroufc, a few were drawn from the medical college in that city, placed under charge of Dr. Ira Harris, and sent on by sea and land with medical supplies to, begin a hospital in Marash.

'More physicians are on the way and others are being procured to report) to Dp Harris, who has to-day taken a part of his men to Zeitoun, forty miles distanb, where 3,000 were reported ill. The results of hia investigations can only reach us later. 'In all Aeia Minor there ia no other organised body of medical relief. We have obligated ourselves for its entire expenses, medical supplies, transportation, hospital arrangements, salaries and travelling expenses of physicians, and all necessary costs of communication between the various points, 'Oar first order for physfefanrwan for six in number, wlfch fcwo druggist* and supplies, The number of physicians should be, at loasb, double, and every offort Is beittff made to that end, 1.c., skilled pbyal. clans' who apeak the Oriental languages. Not ealy Baa?fc the. earwnlJ number for daily pervieq be provided, baft (tllewanea hjbs6 be made tar fchesei who pn»* inevitably sHoeuaafe fca disease and tjywwepk, 'The papered numbs? ef deaths has been fee seme tfHW ff em. ?§ fa 169 daily, ■ «^9 ena, et? f ally a» §flf»§JrPS pan reeog, ' nise fbe FespgpsjßflitijF, pafe tf«B csaditioßjß ace hers sod ?«? FS £?r§ fti?** *° mef^ them, pot wlr Ml $ff* Jsf> tt*£> world pntaidg and, sfcasffrtot to flFfiargrli from dsy tqJ»y. fctßrtins py $$ blßSting p'f moccßfii Sease^ pn. tajthftf} pßde^oani tq afctain some mmemo otiaeMSß^rrQjif^