ORGANISED CRUELTY

Evening Star, Issue 16993, 15 March 1919, Page 11

ORGANISED CRUELTY

AMPUTATIONS WITHOUT ANESTHETICS. A British prisoner taken near StQuentin in March said that all amputations in Germany are being done without anassthetics, owing to alleged shortage of them.—'Daily Mail.' On the day that the Prince of Wales entered Denain and attended the service of thanksgiving in the church there, I lingered behind after all the ceremonies were over, and talked with the inhabitants (says a ' Daily Mail' They had been very badly treated. They were full of the stories of their legitimate woes. One man said to me: "M'sieu should see the English doctor. He knows." I saw him. He was a major incharge of a Canadian field ambulance. When I found him, in the huge building which he had transformed into a hospital, he was busy superintending the treatment of women and pitiful little children who had been gassed by the Boche in defiance of all the laws of humanity. There was one little fellow howling with terror. He did not wish to remain with the military. He had only known the German soldier 1 '' Well, then, take him away, poor little chap," said the major. " Bring him back threa times a day to be dressed." Then the major and I talked of the successful Canadian attack, and of the condition of the town when it had been taken. It was not a pretty story. It was, in fact, a terrible indictment against the Boohe. " They starved the civilians. The only meat they gave them in three years was three dead mulos. And all the time their own officers were living on the best." " Then there was no shortage?" " Oh, yes, there waa a shortage \ but the German officers did not feel it. ' " And their other supplies? Your line, for instance—medical supplies?" The major laughed. "Coma, with me," he said, "and I'll show you a field medical cart, that we captured just as they were driving it off. It is one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen." We went into the transport yard, and there we found something like a Scotch cart with a cloeed-in top, bearing the Red Cross on its sides. The major let down the back flap, and we saw a series of drawers, like an enlarged card-index file cabinet. He pulled one out. " Look at that, he said, " There you have most of the drugs we have been short of for months—and have them in profusion. Morphia, chloroform —anything you like. It is the most perfect thing of its kind I have ever seen. You could sell that cart's cargo in England for its weight in gold. It contains some of the most valuable and rarest synthetic drugs in the world. lb is a treasure trove. . . Like a souvenir? Here, then—here's a case of a dozen phials of morphine—or chloroform—or antipyrln." That was in a field medical cart! If such a supply of rare drugs could be sent up practically to tho front line, what must the German have had in his rear hospitals? What, then, can be his excuse for amputating the limbs of _ our wounded prisoners without amesthetics? Can it have been anything but wanton cruelty? That field medical cart is the evidence.