THE PARIS FLOODS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 71, 26 March 1910, Page 15

THE PARIS FLOODS.

DOCTOIiS" TROUBLES. j The Paris conejspondent of the Lancet describe* the dillkultiea encountered by doctors (hiring the flood. Many of them had to seek shelter in the houses of friends or at hote].«, and the break1 down of the telephone service caused I the_ greatest inconvenience. Much of their visiting had to be done- by boat, and in several districts the only lueaui of transport weie the baiks of policemeu and watermen. 'Some of us," he «ays, "have hiied high carti for vuilK in the most populous streets, but many quarters have Bad to be left unvisited, us, for instance, in cases where the patient Jives in a house at the bottom of a court, the street door of which is immersed above a certain height in water. Several patientf in such a preuicun.ent have dud ir. spite of all efforts to bring them aid, and it is to be feared when the water has suhsided more that people will bo found starved to death at the bottom of scma of the inaccessible courls. "The flood came on us rapidly, and found in many place* dead and dying person*. The rescuing of the" dead bodies has led to many mournful scene*. In a poor dwelling the dead wife of the concierge was laid out on her bed in a room which was rapidly inundated. The husband only just had time to escape with his life, and it was not until the next day that he was able to return in a boat with police assistance, when he found the death -bed flouting about with the tables and chairs, and had to carry the corpse in his arms to the boat. In the Faubourg St. Antoitiw a coffin which had just been fastened down was floating on the waters, and the cemetery on the lie St. Denis was ransacked by the water, which burst open some of the tombs and liberated the coffins. "The failure of the electiic service not only stopped the lifts and the light supply, but_ of course all therapeutic atid diagnostic applications of electricity. At the Institute of France the academicians came by bout, for the two courts of the enormous building have been converted into, two deep lakes, round which you can row as if in Venice. A short sitting was held by candle-light, all tlie members keeping on their hats and overcoats to keep themselves warm. But I must ndd that the institute, which did not suspend its sittings in 1870-71 even durtne the siege of Paris, mnkes it a point of honour that nothing shall interrupt its i>roceedini;.x."