LIFE ON SUNNY SOMES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1909, Page 8

LIFE ON SUNNY SOMES.

AMONG THE MEASLES FOLK. Somes Island is praised as a comfortable prison by the people who have been condemned by measles to abide there for a time. Tha days have been summery since they were put into quarantine, and peace, reasonatily near perfect, has been their portion. They have expressed their thorough satisfaction with the food and general arrangements made by the Health Department, and albo send thanks to the Girls' Realm Guild and the .staff of Messrs. Levin and Co. for gifts of books, magazines, and papers. The measles contingent, all told, numbers forty-four, but there are only twenty actual patients (all children under the age of fourteen years), and ten contacts. Thirty-four persons, including patients, convalescents, and guardians of the children; are housed in a hospital which is divided into five wards. The sufferers have been classified and placed in particular wards according to the degree of their illness. Thus the No. 1 cases are the most "measly," and the No. 5 ones are the nearest to recovery. The contacts, who range between seven and sixteen years, are accommodated in first-class quarters, entirely ! separate from the hospital. They are I bright, energetic children, wiio make their own beds and , look after themselves well, under the supervision of an adult. Every morning they are inspected, and they parade like soldiers beside their beds while the official eye is run over them. Two nurses, assisted by ten mothers and two single girls (relatives of patients), look after the smitten children. Two babies had a close call, but strenuous efforts by a repre | illative of the Health Department and assistants pulled the little ones safely through the crisis. The patients are now all making good progress ; it is expected that some of the prisoners, whose inspection period will have expired, will be liberated next week. • That portion of the island facing Wellington, the sunny side, is reserved for convalescents, and the contacts are free to wander about in the remainder, with the exception of certain forbidden territory, the lighthouse, and so on. In addition to the .two nurses there are two stewards and a cook. The bedsteads for the quai'antined persons were provided by the Health Department, but the bedding, food, crockery, and other domestic requisites are supplied by the ship (the Corinthic) which brought the people here. No satisfactory theory to account for the outbreak of measles has yet been advanced. { Yesterday Dr. Frengley (District Health. Officer) visited the island, and returned in the evening with his chief clerk (Mr. Steward), who had been at the station since Monday. _ I