SERBIA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 31 May 1915, Page 2

SERBIA.

- , /7 —, -;r <' — '-HER CRY FOR .HELP. "The air is full o? farewells to the cyjtng and mournings for the dead." There are many thousands of Austrian niisoners in Serbia, who are collected at various centres in concentration camps. $Jow let roe say by wav u<>f preface tb«t the Serbs are kind and j ; enerous to these prisoners; those whc ,' are empioj-ea in tW nospitais are paid, and all are given the same rations as those drawn by tho Serbian soldiers. These prisoners themselves tell you: I "The Serbs do what they can for us." The "interned" civilians walk about and chat amicably with their Serbian neighbors. Six hundred Austiian officers at Nish lounge m the restaurants and draw full nay. Yes, the Serbs "do what they .can" for their prisoneis, and as long as the Austrian* . keep their health they have little cause | for complaint. But when the grip oi | typhus or-enteric has fastened, upon < him the Austrian takes his chance with ; the rest, and this chance is sometimes i a sorry one. . ; Here is the picture of an Austriari prisoners' oa.mp. This is not a hospital, remember, but simply an ares where 750 Austrians have been collected. Nevertheless, disease has fallen like a blight upon the camp. At at earlier date one doctor was in : charge of this camp, but ho is nbw stricken down by typhus, and various forms oi infectious malady are raging uni checked. Typhus, dysentery, smallpox, diphtheria, have swept over-the place with devastating effects. Last ; weel only 20 men out of 760 could stand or their feet. There they lie in irtte: .; wretchedness. Here, and inhere, one . finds a mslttress; here and ibhere ./$ . i;iltileV^swy' but the bulk; pf; the sicl I meh are siretclied outonthe muddj >! ground.1- -Their clothes are foul and alive with she vermin which spread the deadly typhus. The silence in the samj: is broken o:ily : by 6ighs and groans,, bid when a stranger comes in sight the sick raise themselves on their elbows, if they can, and cry pitifully, "For the love .of God, lady, give us water." "For God's sake, sir, give us bread." NOBODY TO MOVE THE DEAD. A recent visitor noticed a. number oi recumbent forms covered with greatcoats, and found on removing these that five out of the- number were already dead, and had been dead for several days. There was nobody to remove the corpses. Here and there some poor wretch crawled about on hie hands .and knees to fetch ■&■ cup of water to a prostrate comrade. This was all the " attendance ' which was visible, and the shocking condition of the men and the ground on which they lie can be imagined. Can anyone be surprised to learn that some 60 men die in this camp every day? Every man in this hideous environment and all his-comrades who will enter it subsecmently are practically "appointed to die," unless help comes speedily. Let the readex-s of this newspaper who next Sunday may implore the Divine pity on "prisoners and captives" bear in mind the necessities of these stricken men. Uskub is a veritable valley of the shadow of death. If tired nurses leave the crowded hospitals for a little exercise and fresh air they are met by a long procession of bullock waggons carrying rude coffns to the cemetery. Sometimes three coffns with unfastened lids rest on the same cart, and the bodies of the dead are exposed as the wheels jolt over the rough' pavements. The summits of the beautiful hills above the town are covered with white tombstones .and the flags which the Serbs plant upon the graves of their friends. P.sre is an English hosoital which has tried to do the impossible and failed. Six doctors and 12 "orderlies—they had no nurses—took over the control of some 1800 sick and wounded. They have fought a gallant fight against terrible odds, but typhus has beaten them. At this moment two orderlies are dead, three have been invalided home, md three are now laid low by typhus; two doctors are suffering from the svme disease, and one has p;one home. Three doctors and three orderlies are all-that remain on. the active list, and the work of the hospital has had perforce to be temporarily abandoned. What could six doctors do with 1800 men ? Physical effort ha« its limits, and'these had been reached. Men died of sepsis because their wounds could not be dressed. One man died not because of his wounds, which had healed nicely, but from the dreadful bedsores resulting from inevitable neglect. SIXTY-THREE DOCTOR VICTIMS. Worse still are the conditions under which, the. Serbian doctors have labored. The poor Austrian prisoners, the only assistants the doctors hay are no Serbian nurses —do their best, but they are not train&d orderlies, Take a, large Serbian hospital whieli I kridw. It is practically impossible to go near it; so overpowering is the stench in the street outsiSe that nobody who is not compelled to approach the building can bear to be in its vicinity, j Details of the interior cannot Well be' printed, but may be conjectured when; one mentions that foul rags and dress-j ings, and even portions of amputated limbs, are thrown over a wall and left to the attention of croiys and magpies and pariah dogs. Similar refuse has been thrown into the river. Since the commencement of the war 63 Serbian doctors have died in the course of their unequal struggle with disease. One young man of 23, a medical student, has died within a stone's throw of any window. Two British! nurses volunteered to nurse him, but it was too late. Before their arrival he was nursed by nobody excent a little Serbian maidservant, and* last Friday night he escaped in delirium — there was nobody to "look after him— and was later found lying in the muddy road in the bitter cold. Another Ser-, bian doctor recently died of typhoid and as he was being buried his young wife died at home of the same dread malady. So terrible have been the results of this overcrowding that it seems doubtful whether in the long run more lives may not be lost than gained by attempting the impossible. Had hospitals now containing 300 men refused admission to more than 100, and taken every precaution* that experience and science furnished against dirt and vermin and polluted air, the results actually achieved by medical effort might have been better. But what of the 200 men excluded? No man, doctor or layman, can leave a .helpless soldier lying in the street if there is room to bring him under shelter, even if you find 15 beds in one small room so closely packed that a nurse has to edge herself sideways between the beds. These doctors did what they could, and sound human feeling will endorse their action and envy the noble deaths of those who perished in the midst of their, ceaseless and unselfish toil.— Captian S. N.E that he has had the Captain E. N. Bennett, in the Daily Mail.