The Toll of War.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15309, 19 June 1915, Page 8

The Toll of War.

During thc past week we chronicled thc death of a Naval lieutenant who had just begun to be known as a poet of singular beauty and power, and a great many peoplo must have been started anew, when they read our paragraph, upon tho current of thought which ends in an ..gonised realisation of the lull toll of; war. Tho German «!lells havo destroyed Louvain. and havo rained upon the Rhcims Cathedral, destroying here, there, and everywhere a groat deal of thc spiritual capital of mankind. At tho same timo the shells of all the nations hay. been destroying men who aro of special value to tho mind of tho world. The dreadful totals of the casualtj lists tell us of millions of miseries, but they do not tell us the full tal 0 of the loss to art and science and philosophy with which tho world is paying for its repression of the brutal monster who has suddenly reared himself up against civilisation and peace. The English Naval lieutenant is not the only good poet who is lost through the war—in ail the armies there have been serving many good writers. Thiß prac-

i.-.-nl world will perhaps think that they can be better spared than the scientists or the young men of action. In a paper in the "Atlantic Monthly," Mr Herbert W. Horwill cites an example*—one of many—of the cost if war. Tho feature of tho 17th Inter. national Medical Congress in London ia

1913 was the address delivered by Pro

fessor Paul Ehrlich. the discoverer o ; salvor—in. Professor Ehrlich himself gives much of the credit for this discovery to his colleague, Dr. Berthcim, of the Frankfort PhysiologicInstitute. Dr. Berthcim was one of tho first German soldiers killed in tlio war. "It is not extravagant to say,'' Mr Horwill observes, "that the bullet "or shrapnel or bayonet that killed

" Berthcim killed also an unknown •' number of future sufferers of all "nationalities. In the official tables " hi« death is counted technically as a *'* Moss' to Germany only. Actually it

'•' inflicted a loss no less severe upon '• France, upon England, upon '' America, ard, indeed, upon every

'" country that profits by the ad"var.ces of scientific medicine." The brief obituary notices published' from time to timo in the "British Medical

"Journal" already make a heavy catalogue of young doctors whose deaths are serious losses to British medicine, ar.d in some, cases the frustration of nearly-completed researches of high value. Scores of University professors, from all parts of Franco, have laid down their lives for their courtry; and already even England, whose soil is free from the risk of invasion, is reading in tho casualty lists thc name of vourg "University men of high promise. Mr Horwill quotes -it random a few names to illustrate the sacrifices which literature must bo prepared to make in this great testirg of thc human race. Maxim Gorky ha., become oi.lv food for powder, ard has fought in several battles in Galicia. M. Charles Nordman, the editor of thc scientific section of thc famous "Revue " dcs Deux Mondcs." is serving in Alsace: the French poet, Paul Claudel, whose literary merits have led to the os'ablishment of "Claudelian" societies in France, is also in the field. Music is suffering too. "Musicians," writes Mr Ernest Newman in the "Musical Times," "may well doubt "•' the sanity of a world iv which Kries- " lor is in arms against Thibaud, and "in which it is thc business of tho.se "of us here who owo some of the

• finest moments of our life to do al' "wo can to prevent their pouring out "any more of their genius upon us." Yet it is an unhealthy mind to which it would appear desirable that the gifted men—the painters, poets, doctore, scientists, philosophers, musicians, and novelists—should abstain from offering their lives for thoir native lands. The loss is very great, but it is not so great as it 6eems; for tho world and tho race aro young and as fruitful as over. The losses will bo ronewed, and more than renewed. And in the end, it is bettor after all that a man, in this great world crisis, should turn from helping with the ornamentation or thc easing of life hero on earth to the big business of helping with the necessaries of life. Tlio function of a soldier is a higher one to-day than the function of any artist, and that fact must consolo us for tho waste of high gifts involved in this war.